I heard there was this really good software called Ubuntu.
C’mon, someone had to say it. 
True, but then the issue is usually PLBKAC*.
*Problem Lies Between Keyboard And Chair
I use whatever copy of software my dad bought for the year. Two years ago it was McAfee, last year it was Norton. I can’t say that I’ve got any complaints for either of them, however, I think the problem really lies with Windows.
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probably 95% of the viruses that I’ve experienced have created complications with the registry (which completely mess the computer until the next reformat). One can imagine that all the hype about a more secure OS was created, and then the developers at MS kept banging their heads over the same problem: How can we determine whether something is a virus or not? Which of course gave them the idea, yes or no. If a Vista computer gets infected with some sort of virus, well, the it must be PLBKAC.
Perhaps if they made 3-4 different subsections of the registry… the very low level stuff, which shouldn’t be modified, the mid level, trusted software, and then the last level, where anything can really edit. Then you can wipe as far down as it needs…
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Anyhow, the list of software applications that I use include Firefox, Pidgin, and SUPER… using these I really never get any complications
I’m not too experienced in this field, but I use Window’s Defender for my XP box. It seems to actually do quite a good job, as well as being nice and non-intrusive on my CPU and RAM usage when I’m CADing.
I guess the guys who made Window’s are actually decent at keeping it secure.
Edit: But no software is a replacement for caution while browsing, and being smart before running programs of unknow origin.
On the topic of AV software, is it better to quarantine a detected file, or completely remove it (Delete the file)?
Basically, the point of quarantining a file is so that if it turns out that the file wasn’t a virus, and a piece of some software that you NEED… you can put it back. For the most part, this doesn’t happen. But it’s just as safe to quarantine the file as opposed to deleting it, and then if you need it back, it’s there.
Jacob
Very rarely, software that you install on your computer may come with things that show up as viruses/malware/etc when doing a scan. Although rare, by deleting these files you may be violating the user agreement that you clicked “I Agree” to when you first installed it.
I once had this issue years ago (before the days of Firefox), when I was experimenting with Opera. Back then, Opera used to come with built-in advertising unless you paid a fee, and thus would come up in virus/malware scans. :-/
I am definitely a freeware guy myself. Spybot is probably the best spy/ virus protection I have seen.
There’s a comparison of AV products on av-comparatives.org where they tested their performance against “unknown” threats. They used February defs and put them up against malware that have come out since.
Aviracame out on top, catching 71% of them, but with many false positives. NOD32 looks like the winner with 68% and very few false positives. AVG (which I have used till now) only found 8%. Guess I’ll be doing some home helpdesk work this weekend…
I use Nod32 for antivirus and Spybot: Search and Destroy for antispyware.
Nod32 is very nice, it doesn’t use much in the way of resources (As I type this, it’s using about 23 MB of RAM) because it’s not as bloated as, say, Norton.
Spybot: Search and Destroy has a nice thing called Resident which prompts you to allow or deny a change to important parts of the registry (such as startup) so if a program that shouldn’t be adding stuff to the registry is, you can block it from changing the registry.
Also: I had no spyware when I set Firefox to prompt every time a site wanted to set a cookie for a few months. However, it got annoying after a while.