Free AVG anti-virus is an excellent tool as are Spybot S&D and Adware. My experience with Norton is that it is invasive and interferes with some of my programs ans soft ware. To me, IT is the virus! McAfee is only a little less obnoxious. PC Pitstop is another freebie that will analyze and tune up your machine. Having said all that, I have to tell you I also dislike Win 2000 and XP and really miss Win 98 so you might say "What does he know?". It's just my preference, my opinion. Find what works best for you but by all means, protect your machine from the man-made vermin that is out there. Good luck.