Hi, I am looking for suggestions on the best anti-virus application. Specificly in how it relates to flight sim. I use Norton but it seems to load allot of proccesses. It seems there is quite a bit of memory used. Any ideas or thought? Thanks.

The two big payware contenders are McAffee VirusScan and Norton AntiVirus. The jury's out as to which is better, and to be honest either will do a great job.As for their relations with flightsim, when flying there's no need to have them running. I use VirusScan, and usually "disable" it before starting FS. This makes the sim run slightly smoother.Either way, make sure that whichever you get you keep it updated !Cheers,Alastair

I've been using AVG (FREEWARE!) from Grisoft. Their virus database updates every couple of days, and it is much smaller than either aforementioned product. Not sure how great it is, but it has found one or two viruses for me, and one false positive. I also use it on my work PC, where I occasionally also run a manual Norton scan, and that machine is clean according to both programs. Since I transfer files between work and home via the net and CDs ***OFTEN***, I can say that it is working just fine. I do usually shut it down via task manager when running FS anyway...sg

I highly favor AVG, and actually bought the pro version to support them. The freeware version has all the features I use though.AVG is effective, always up to date with the latest virus info, and works completely silently if you want it to. It's captured viruses for me that I found out about only later when I scanned the logs. That's my kind of virus checker.

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I also vote for AVG. I don't let it run in the background, but I scan any incoming file. But the best virus protection of all has no overhead on a system--just using common sense and caution. In tandem with good A/V software, you need both Spybot and Adaware. Most virus scanning programs don't scan for spyware, and some spyware will bring your system to its knees, especially when trying to run MSFS...-John

Thanks John. I've been looking for something reasonably priced for spyware, and you can't much more reasonable than free. Any reason you use both? They look pretty much the same to me.

I switched from McAfee to Panda AV a few months ago and haven't looked back.Excellent performance and security. I use the pro version which comes complete with a very nice firewall.

I use both because sometimes Spybot will catch things that Adaware does not, and vise versa... Since we have a fairly open web policy, and since some Spyware can evade user restrictions on our workstations, both have been great tools on my WAN--especially when dealing with remote users who bring in their laptops in various states of flux... :)-John