McAfee virus update = SLOW START-UP

mcafee and norton are in my doghouse! if you want good protection without the bloat I recommend NOD32, or if yo are a cheapskate and don't wanna pay up, in which case Avast! gets my vote (AVG has failed me)

I couldn't agree with that more, right down to the points about Avast! being excellent for cheapskates (like myself), and AVG failing me.

i dont wanna sound like a jerk, but i kinda feel bad for you. currently all the software on my laptop is 100% free (legaly...yes even the OS). last time i paid for software is when i bought HL2 Collectors Edition....ran me like $60

What free antivirus program are you using?

I'm not ABF, but I can answer that question for you. In his first post, he mentioned Avast! as his free AV program of choice.

Linux, no AV required Back in my windows days i used avast! EDIT: Few days ago i found out there is ClamAV for Windows.... looks promising.

Just downloaded the Ubuntu live CD Saturday for messing around with. I am for the most part a linux newbie. I have "played" with it off and on for a few years, but never really spent much time on it. I am very impressed with the Ubuntu live release though. Sometime this week or perhaps next weekend, I think I will give it a go and dual boot it on a couple machines. Earlier versions of Gentoo I liked, but it was just too much of a pain/too time consuming for a true newb to get installed. I am soo ready to ditch Billy Goats. Unfortunately, I will have to try and keep up with MS stuff for side-job related reasons.

Nice, if I uninstall MS Excel, I think I'll be one step closer to you. Either that, or I get Avast.. pronto! Thanks for the recommendation .. I don't have any antivirus pgrms installed at the moment after I experimented with AVG in the past..

ThunderPC.... good luck!

i can tell you know though that you'll be disappointed with ubuntu's speed. the i386 is not optimized at all for any kind of speed... so yeah, gonna be pretty slow. i use the x86_64 version because i am so l33t it has some speed optimizations so its fast enough for me to live with.
gentoo is for sure not a noob distro. i myself failed like 5 or 6 times trying to get it to work... just too much time and effort is required.

the 64 bit extension one is the one I will also be using. Thanks for the luck wish ... I am sure I will need it!

I can vouch for one thing. McAfee is the WORST AV i have ever used. I have had the absolute worst experience with it. My computer was working perfectly and then Norton expired on me. My mom goes out to buy McAffe cause the guy at fry's says its good. I say to myslef how bad can it be i install it on the company built comp first, works fine but takes FOREVER to install all updates (cause it requires a restart after each update). Takes about an hour of sitting there to complete updating. Then I do it on my brother's comp. Then I do it on mine. After going throuhg all the updates it starts fu*** with my comp, slow startups, freezes, so i go to mcaffee website they do their online diagnostic thing and it says updates installed wrong, you must uninstall mcaffe and reinstall it. I say to myself, crap, but gotta continue.

I finish reinstalling it and am about to install updates. I install the first one and it reboots, and after a while i realize it's not getting into windows at all! I say to myself WTF. try a bunch of stuff doesn't work. I then decide o.k. ill reformat. I did it and lost a bunch of very important stuff. I do it and say to myself no more Mcaffe. Now my brother's computer is experiencing freezes all the time, i can't pinpoint it now but it only started to happen after mcaffe was installed.

Not to mention it doesn't detect anything for ****.

1 - never trust anybody @ bestbuy or fry's or any of those other stores. most of those people are quite retarded when it comes to computers

2 - from my experience big time brand name things in the computer world are not the best. that is, if the company feels it needs to advertise their product to have it sell, it already proves something about its quality. for instance (i am gonna get flamed for this) the iPod, its not even close to being the best portable player out there, but peopel buy it like hotcakes because its a fashion statement and its HEAVILY advertised. Same is true about Dell Computers. Ok, the AXIM PDAs are very nice, so are some of the XPS (M1710) systems, but generally those Celery-powered cr@pboxes are....cr@p...so on and os forth. whatever......

anyway, the bottom line is: if you trully wanna know whats best you gotta talk to the experts, aka dorks like us hanging out here @ notebookforums