help finding best free firewall & virus program

Hope some of you can help me with this. I am looking for the best free firewall and the best virus detecting program.

I thank all of you who post replies Oh BTW, I am using Windows XP

 

You'll get numerous replies and virtually all different.

There is no best, no AV will detect all bugs. However, Avira is popular for AV and Comodo is popular for firewall.

Personally I use Avira and Kerio PF 2.1.5 but to be honest your best defence is your own brain, surf safely.

Other tools you may be interested in...

WOT (Web Of Trust) - Gives you an idea if a website can be trusted or not.
Super Anti Spyware

Again, none of the above is a replacement for your own brain, think before opening attachments in emails, don't use P2P software, that kind of thing.

 

AVG is pretty good, however xp is more vulnerable than vista or windows7 no matter what antivirus program you use.

 

I use "Avast ", then thought I would try "Avira "

Avira found a trojan in one of my files, so it made
a friend out of me for a few weeks.

Avira started nagging me about updating it's
database everyday, and I could not figure out
how to turn it off.

I have dial-up and don't want the AV program
to update except when I decide to do so.

Anyway, I went back to Avast.

As far as AVG and dial-up, they don't mix because
AVG regular uploads and downloads whether you
like it or not.

My personal opinion is that AVG is spyware and it is
collecting your surfing habits and transferring that
information to some place that I prefer it not to go.

When using AVG, my dial-up connection is constantly
busy, and my surfing drops to a crawl.

I have not used AVG in five years, and maybe things
have changed.

Avast has a quirky menu system in version 4.0, but I
want to download the new 5.0 program.

With Avast, there are not any nags and it does what
I tell it.

As far as virus detection, possibly Avira made a "false
positive" on that file I was talking about.

As for "Firewalls ", Windows XP has one built in, and you
may "tweak" it to your specifications.

 

Right click on the notification Icon...
Select configure AntiVir...
Ensure the Expert mode check box is ticked...
General->Update->Select "Do not download product updates "

Obviously do a manual update often (I recommend at least once a week)...

Again Right on the notification Icon and select Start Update.