I need to purchase some anti virus software for my HP Pavillion laptop.

I was hoping of some sort of downloadable software under £30.

Any recommendations please?

No, you don’t.

Windows Defender and an occasional scan with Malwarebytes will see you right.

Defender for W8 (uninstall McAfee or whatever crap it came with, Defender should then activate automatically).

Microsoft Security Essentials for W7 – download from MS’s website.

What is malwarebytes?

The laptop was purchased at Christmas and seems to have slowed down a lot, which I presumed was lack of anitvirus has allowed some nasties in?

What scans should I be running?

http://www.malwarebytes.org (is Google down?)

Download and run Malwarebytes

Thanks all, seems a good program.

Is the premium worth it?

No. Just run the free scan every now and then.

Ok thanks,

Just one more silly question?

Will this protect my Laptop when im online? ie Internet banking etc

As well as the above, CCleaner is good for clearing out temporary files which can slow things down…

https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

…free version is fine, no need to pay for add-ons.

296 potential nasties on first malware scan.

Seems to be running a lot quicker now.

Thanks again.

I’ve run Norton since I bought my W7 Toshiba laptop a few years ago, and it takes absolutely ages to start up. My subscription runs out next month, so should I abandon it then, based on the above advice? I also run Malwarebytes and CCleaner, BTW.

Yes great stuff.

Seems to have worked on mine.

Oldboy, I had Norton problems like yours so uninstalled it with this.

Norton Removal tool

Just running MSE with regular Malwarebytes scans and all is good

As well as the above, CCleaner is good for clearing out temporary files which can slow things down…

CCleaner is very good, but is capable of doing damage if you’re not careful. Use TFC instead.

My subscription runs out next month, so should I abandon it then, based on the above advice?

Absolutely. Though uninstall it through normal means before cracking out removal tools.

avoid ccleaner – you can do more harm than good with it

as above use Microsoft anti-virus with malwarebytes

if you want another also use superantispyware

What’s the issue with ccleaner? Been using it for years without any probs.

What’s the issue with ccleaner? Been using it for years without any probs.

It has the potential to do damage as it contains a registry cleaner. Your registry isn’t dirty, leave it alone.

Ah, makes sense. It always seems to find a lot of junk in registry – guess I’ve been lucky so far. Will try TFC, cheers.