Have ordered new PC with Vista Ultimate which will be delivered in the coming weeks.

Will I need A/V & Firewall as Vista comes with both these "built-in" does it not?

I have Virgin BB (20Mb connection) that comes with free AV/Firewall suite thingy (currently running on my XP machine).

I know XP needed "proper AV etc." but is Vista protection (Defender, Firewall etc.) a lot better?

I'm also rather wary that 3rd party AV sloooows down pc's so would like to avoid that if possible. I'm also careful re: e-mails etc and won't be installing crap on my PC either.

 

You will still need an AV product, Vista doesnt come with one, I was using AVG but am now using Sophos, tbh there is no difference having AV installed or not on this PC

Vista 64 bit Ultimate with 4Gb ram

 

you should be OK for firewall as the vista one is better than xp. defo get a AV. you can get AVG 8.0 at free.grisoft.com.

 

DO NOT INSTALL AVG. It's rubbish, not secure, uses lots of resources unnecessarily, and lets through loads of nasty stuff that it shouldn't.

Nod32 is probably the best option out there at the moment and only costs about £20 a year

 

VM one is free since I'm with them. No idea how good it is or what "engine" it's based on etc.

I assume Windows Defender is the anti-spyware component so all Windows is missing is AV?

 

Yep. Windows defender isn't bad and catches most things (unless you are silly and download dodgy stuff all the time), and the firewall works fine. AV is the only thing you really need...

 

I use Eset's NOD32. No complaints! It hardly affects my PC while it's doing it's daily scan.

 

nod32 is excellent. but if you are poor since you already fork out for your vista OS license, AVG 8.0 is free.

 

and as said before AVG 8 simply doesn't work. You get what you pay for...

 

Avast is a good free one though, agree with Iain AVG is a resource hog.

 

use kaspersky meself. find it to be spot on

 

hmmm... i thought AVG used to be good and low on resources too. maybe time has changed?

 

i would also recommend spybot and adaware on your machine

 

Nope, it's always been pretty bad...

 

I'd still recommend Nod32, and forget installing 50 other programs, since installing nod32 never had a virus or problem with spam/spyware etc. If your systems clean when installing it you shouldnt have any issues during day to day use

 

if only nod32 do a freebie version.

 

Approx 75p a week for a year, or even less if you go for the 2 or 3 yr contract, hardly breaks the bank does it?

 

How do they compare to Windows Defender?

 

Not sure how they compare, but I've just got Nod32 and Windows Defender on my machine, and have never had a problem with spyware or viruses.