I bet that at least once in your lifetime you might have regret that you have not chosen the best anti-virus software for your computer.
May be you are using a free software that do not offer all the protection that your PC need or you might be using a software that is very heavy on resources.
I certainly know what you feel because I have trusted on free anti-virus for a long time until my computer and data files were corrupted.
All my work would have been lost if it was not for some backup.
Since then I do not trust free software anymore and I prefer to spend a couple of dollars by buying a reputed anti-virus software to protect me.
When you think about it it's not that expensive.
Around $5 per month.
This is not expensive compared to the importance of my computer data.
However it is important that you take time to choose the best anti-virus software to reap the most benefits.
Best anti-virus software for windows XP and Vista I will concentrate my article on Windows XP and Vista because it is the operating system I used the most.
There are many good anti-virus programs that exist for these platforms but some of them may be heavy on system resources.
After careful selection I have found one that is really good and also efficient.
It is good in the sense that it does what it says on the box.
It scans your PC, pro-active scanning of files and update itself regularly in the background.
Efficient in the sense that it does not use a lot of system resources and also good value for money.
Moreover it comes with firewall protection to prevent unauthorized access to your PC, provide protection for identity theft when on the Internet and disable links to malware sites.
You are really protected with this software.