Not sure if this is the place to launch the question ...I recently switched from McAfee to Norton for various reasons and although I never had problems in FS9 with McAfee still running in the background, I now have regular stuttering with Norton.Some people will argue to turn you virus scanner and privacy protector off when in FS9 but how do you run ActiveSky if you are not on the Internet and how do you protect yourself if your Security system is not active ...?Which Security system will give you the firewall and spyware protection without making FS9 going slideshow?RegardsTerblanche

I used norton for many yrs and was happy with it, but it was system hog. I recently read a review of antivirus software and Kaspersky anti virus came out on top for detection and also for not hogging system resources. I also use zone alarm firewall with antispyware and run them both while simming with no problems.Paul.

I have Trend Micro on my home network and our business servers. Norton brought our server performance to a crawl with certain applications. I once had to manually remove Norton from a computer and it was invasive with the crap it installed and left over. Never had virus on any of my boxes with Trend Micro and you get a live person with tech support. Norton's customer service stinks.Bob..

For the past couple years or so, my ISPs have stripped all viruses on email, which is the only vector I have seen for a long time. ISTM that if you have a properly setup firewall, I don't see any reason to worry about antivirus when running FS9 with Active Sky. scott s..

I was running McAfee until recently, when I had a consultation with FS-GS about optimising my FS9 setup. They recommended I ditch McAfee as it has too large a footprint. I went with NOD32 and I have been extremely impressed with it. It is fast to load and rock steady. I have no reservations about recommending it to anyone. http://www.eset.com/Cheers,Noel.

I dumped Norton after several years and replaced it with Avast! and I've been very happy with it. Uses a lot less resources than Norton did.Jim

You are going to get a lot of different opinions, and except for the system hogging of Norton AND McAfee, some don't really know why they prefer certain AV software. It's what they "heard" or "read" about them.You can turn the virus acanner off when using FS if you think that it's causing stutters. You will only be downloading weather and have nothing to worry about.

>"ISTM that if you have a properly setup firewall, I don't see any reason to worry about antivirus"A firewall and AV software are two different things. Know what you're talking about before giving advice.

I can honestly say that NOD32 is the best antivirus solution I have ever used.Small footprint and doesn't install tons of junk. I still turn it off using FSAutostart when I use FS9 with AS.I am behind a router so I dont feel too exposed and have had no problems yet.

I use Avast! - it's free and works well.

I agree. I've used many Av programs and NOD32 is, by far, the best of the lot. Small footprint, daily updates, and uses very little system resource.Doug

I concur - NOD32 is the best package available due to its very small footprint.Best,Owen

AVG....and it's FREE!I used Norton for many years on all my PC's (Office and Home). It's truly a system HOG and one day I deleted it, and never looked back. AVG is very comprehensive, updates itself just about every other day, and my FRAMES on FS are better than ever.

Do you have a firewall built into your router? If so, you can turn off any anti-virus package when running FlightSim as long as you aren't running anything else that might download executables in the background (like your browser or email). Using a weather program only retreives text, and is not a problem.If you don't have a firewall built into your router, you will need to either enable the XP software firewall, or download one (ZoneAlarm, Outpost, etc.). But do NOT disable this firewall when running Flight Sim. You can still disable your anti-virus.As to which anti-virus, there are many varied opinions. The tops I've heard about are avast, avg, and nod32. I personally use Avast. It is easily stopped by FSAutoStart, and even when running, does not impact my computer very much. I get constant virus and program updates, and all for free. And on other people's computers that were infected, the boot-scan by Avast cleaned these computers with no problem (they had other anti-virus packages installed and they managed to get infected, I immediately uninstalled them and installed Avast). Avast also provides P2P, Instant Messenger, Email, Outlook/Exchange, Network, and Browser plugins for free and come with the Home edition.

Footprint is an issue but not as critical in todays systems, after 10 years experience in the security business you have to go with a Antivirus program that is proactive at stopping threats before they get to you. For this the absolute clear winner is McAfee's corportate version with its built in HIPS - host intrusion prevention technology, the consumer version is not bad either. Simply put it will proactively stop buffer overflow attacks without new signatures while the rest of the AV gang rush to get new signatures to you. Nice thing about the corporate edition is that you can exclude trusted processes from scans like FS.exe!!!