The GF's computer is unbearably slow and I notice her virus software has not been updated since 2010
I'm currently downloading MalwareBytes but what else can ppl recommend?
She doesn't have any money for paid program's, regardless of how much I drive home the importance to her

Currently free antiviruses are great, there is no need to purchase a paid one if you are not an internet kamikaze. Avast, Avira, AVG or Microsoft are all great and reasonably light on resources. Malwarebytes is a good complement to any of them, in real time (paid version), or just as an on demand scanner (free version; the quick scan uses to be enough).

See this real time comparative:

http://www.westcoastlabs.com/realTimeTesting/article/?articl eID=1

MS Security Essentials, AVAST, AVIRA, ES. There's the big list at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/antivirus-partners/windows- 7.aspx

MS Security Essentials is a decent, lightweight option and is available for XP, in case you neglected your duties and haven't migrated her system to Win7 yet.

Once the system is clean, safe surfing practices can be the best defense. FireFox with NoScript is a good start. And ensure the system receives security update patches within days, rather than years of release. Also, as you seem to know, it's not your GF's responsibility to maintain her system, it's yours. Don't screw it up. Again.

The only free suite I can recommend is Comodo, which will provide a firewall and AV combo. It's pretty much fire and forget in that once you've told it what's safe and what isn't it's virtually invisible. Very low resource usage as well. I've been using it for at least 2 years with only one trojan infection, and that was a reputable website that had an issue with an infected banner ad so afaik no amount of AV protection would have combated that anyway.

First, all suites, even free ones, give a very good protection against drive-by downloads via script scanners. Second, Commodo Firewall's HIPS should have stopped cold that, or at least warned you. That's a fail for me. Comodo usually performs badly in independent tests.

Confusing ... here's how it appeared on my screen:

Many thanks guys.
No time to try any of these yet, too busy with Easter lunch and all that jazz

Probably be less confusing if he didn't capitalize virus

I've used Avast forever. It's great and the few bugs I got it got rid of. What I like is you can turn it off when you go offline. MWBytes=+1000 - has gotten rid of things nothing else could. Hitman Pro - just to cover all bases. I also use PC Tools Firewall and I guess it was the last free version.(one good thing about being a lazy updater) Sad, because as good as Comodo Firewall is, I hated it.

Make sure you have these before your system goes down:


http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/rescuedisk

http://www.avg.com/gb-en/avg-rescue-cd

http://download.bitdefender.com/rescue_cd/


You will be able to boot from these if the worst happens.


I was just giving it the big Charlie Large Potato, when funnily enough, I think I got hit by a virus. It might not have been. But it was not good.

In this case Bit Defender rescued me.
In others it has been AVG.


Oh well, I am a bit bruised, but I can post and my computer is working again.
This is the first time in five years, this has happened.

I have HIPS to paranoia on my system. But I got taken down.
I'm back up.


umm...




It was bit defender that rescued me in this case.
Avg saved another system....


Anti-Virus is useless. Make sure you have some rescue CD's as I have mentioned.
And make sure you have your data backed up.


Those are the three best rescue CD's. Burn them. They will save you if push comes to shove. But have your data backed up too.

If you are serious about security, this is the no.1 place to go:
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/

All the security professionals from all over the world congregate here.

You can learn about anti-virus, anti-malware, system hardening (EMET) and other strategies to fight off the bad things...


Everyone gets hacked sooner or later. So make sure you have an image backed up.