Hi, My norton has expired, and to renew costs $29.95 + $29.95 for the firewall. I cannot afford to buy that right now. What do I do? What are the best free anti virus and firewalls? I have heard that AGV and zone alarms should be good. What do you guys say? What are the best free ones? Also, before installing these new things, do I really have to delete norton completely? Also, I have this virus thing called Troj.Buddylink.A. Do you guys know how to get rid off this? I have run norton, online panda, online housecall, adaware and spybot. Tanja

Tanja While you're waiting for replies - turn your XP Firewall on - if you haven't already... ..Network Connections - your ISP -Properties- Advanced Tab When you get your own Firewall you can turn XP's off again Lesley

Yes you should uninstall Norton before you install another antivirus. Many programs will not allow you to install without the NAV removal. I know AVG used to allow you to, but I do not use their new version, so I am not sure about it. The best deal is from Computer Associates. Go to the Microsoft Updates Page, just as if you were going to get the latest critical updates, check their three steps for security and the free year offer for a firewall(Zone Alarm pro version 3.7 and antivirus(ETrust) link is there. It also come on a cd, if you order the Microsoft update cd. Go to http://www.pcflank.com/ and get a trial version of TDS(full program) to get rid of your trojan. Be sure to update it, before you use it. If Norton identified the trojan, have you turned system restore off, restarted and entered the safe mode and used Norton to clean/delete it? After the system is clean you can turn system restore back on. It is a sure fired place for a worm/trojan/viirus to hide and it is usually the first step one must take in solving a virus/trojan/worm problem. Make sure you have all the Microsoft critical updates installed for your operating system and office software.

The best $80 you will ever spend will be on a hardware firewall/router. There is no substitue, and it saves you so much time, frustration and money I can see no way I could recommend anything over it. If you have dial up, now this is a different story. As far as antivirus goes, i guess if you absolutely do not want to spend money, it would be ok to go with AVG. But.... you get what you pay for.

I have had Pc-cillin for about 2 years and I have not had any problems with it. It has a ton of useful features for the 2004 eddition. Best of all it comes with a firewall and its only $50.00. I think you can't go wrong. http://www.trendmicro.com/en/home/us/personal.htm

hi tanjaB, get hauri anti-virus, download it, get virus defs, scan with it, and it will delete the trojan and anyother virus,malware it finds. it will also repair any file that is infected,something that other av's promise but don't do. all the best, murve

AVG is great never had a problem but I do have dial-up.