I've been wanting to write a blog post about my personal favorite free and payed for antivirus and antispyware programs for a while now.

This is really an important topic. Viruses, Spyware, and other forms of Malware (Malicious Software) have never been as much of a problem as they are today; and unless you're a computer guru and know how to effectively traverse the open sea, that is the internet, you're a perfect target for these types of software.

In this blog I want to speak about some of the best freeware and buyware applications out there to keep your computer fully protected.

Buyware

Antivirus - Kaspersky

For antivirus software the very best out there is a program called Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Kaspersky is the absolutely best at producing new signatures. A signature is an update to an antivirus application that feeds it more information about what viruses look like. Tiny pieces of code specific to an individual virus are copied to the antivirus' definition file (so that it can detect the virus). Kaspersky had an amazing response time for new viruses between 0 and 2 hours. Mose of the runner-ups, including Norton Antivirus, were closer to 6-12 hours.

Other features include a user-friendly, polished interface for easy interaction and configuration, email protection from viruses, antiphishing protection for scan emails, and a "proactive defense" module which looks for hidden processes and registry changes consistent with rootkits.

System slow down is a little higher, close to 10%, although anything that offers near as great protection would still slow your computer down by about 5%.

Also, with Kaspersky you'll get free phone and email support, a service which other Anti-Virus programs will cost you an additional charge/charges.

As far as price the first year-long license will cost you $50, much more than other Anti-Virus applications which go from as little as $30-$40, but successive years will only cost you $35. Additionally the Online-Download version will cost you $10 less than the Retail, "boxed" version.

My final say on Kaspersky, is that if you're really itching for the best protection out there and have the system resources to dedicate to the software, then this is your best bet.

Antispyware - PC Tools Spyware Doctor

Without a doubt the best antispyware is Spyware Doctor 5.0, made by PC Tools. In the October 2007 issue of PC World Magazine, Spyware Doctor received a 95/100, "Superior" rating, the best it's ever given for Computer Defense Software.

In tests performed by AV-Test.org, Spyware Doctor detected 81 percent of inactive adware samples and 100 percent of active adware samples. Additionally, SD can detect malicious additions to your registry and prevent malware from changing your brower's default search and start pages.

Although I could find no direct statistics about system slow-down, Spyware Doctor doesn't seem to use very many system resources, during real-time protection only about 25 MB of memory is allocated to the program, and full hard-drive scanning time is average.

Spyware Doctor's big buttons and clean design let you easily set real-time protection. The user interface is very simple for gurus and novices alike.

24/7 telephone support comes free for U.S. customers. So if you need help with installation, activation, or scanning help is just a phone call away.

Spyware Doctor will set you back $30, but you can search the internet for free coupons where you can get it for just $20 dollars.

The runner up for Antispyware only scored an 85/100 in PC World's tests. There simply is no better Antispyware tool out there.

Freeware

Antivirus/Antispyware - AVG

AVG is a great and light-weight Antivirus Solution. Grisoft, the company that created AVG, just released a brand new version of their free antivirus utility: AVG 8.0. In AVG 8, many new features have been added. First of all is their breathtaking design. The application's front-panel looks almost like a web page and is very simple to understand.

AVG has also separated the task of malware protection into several smaller categories: Antivirus, Antispyware, Email Scanning, etc. It's really for this reason alone that I'm placing AVG as the best runner for both Antivirus and Antispyware. To be honest Viruses and Spyware have becoming more and more alike that it's really hard to tell the difference between the two. So if one program can do it all, then there's no reason to go overboard.

AVG uses minimal system resources and has great systematic updates, that'll you'll rarely even see notification of. As though it weren't even there; and that's how it should be!