As of now, I have 53 days left in my Norton antivirus subscription. Right now, I am using Norton AV 2008 and I just wanted to ask you guys if there is anything better than that. The reason why I ask is that about 2 months ago, my computer was infected with a really noxious form of spyware (the kind that changes your desktop image, makes hoards of pop ups appear, takes up a lot of cpu power, and damages the important system registrar files). Norton was totally defenseless against that type of infection. When I tried using Ad-Aware Se 2007 to remove it, it detected a small portion of it (had a MAL rating of 10) but it was not enough to restore my computer. I even contacted norton and they kept insisting that I have one of their "live techs" remove it to me for a "nominal fee" of only $100. That really ticked me off. After paying for a two year subscription, my pc was still not perfectly protected. Do any of you know if there is any program that can defend you against threats of that nature as well? Any suggestions are welcome!

Bitdefender is getting good reviews and a great price. My Bitdefeneder Standard Antivirus is expiring and just ordered this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832719013

True, but with bittorrent, there is no price, LOL!

I just use Avast! Home Edition. Pro is good but don't waste money on any anti virus. Avast! Home Edition is free, light (not a CPU Hog) and is great for boot scans (scans that run before the computer starts and loads any programs, VERY useful) Not all anti virus' suit your needs but my personal favourite, yet, is Avast!


http://www.avast.com - just try it out

To me kaspersky works great !!!

Sounds good, can't wait to pirate those

What exactly is Bittorrent?

Basically, Bittorrent is the latest type of p2p file sharing. With bittorrent, a file is divided into several smaller pieces that are shared amongst the users. You can find a detailed description here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_%28protocol%29

The thing that makes bittorrent really useful is that you can download so many movies and programs that you would very rarely find on a gnutella file sharing program. It is quite literally a gold mine of full quality movies and costly programs. So far, I downloaded over 50 movies and burned them to dvd (using dvd authoring software). I also downloaded about 10 pc games. All of the new stuff like halo 3 is already on bittorrent since individual users are responsible for seeding the data (uploading to other users). If you are interested in this, I recommend the client utorrent.

http://www.utorrent.com/

The latest version has support for vista.

Wouldn't that put you at A very high risk for catching a bug?

Actually no, it does not. I have been using it for over a year now and I downloaded about 50-60 files on it. It did not get a spyware/viral infection. The same goes for my friends who also use bittorrent. I don't know exactly why since I don't know that much about how the servers work (and the programming code), but from personal experience, it does not happen. On the other hand, I did catch a few viruses when I was using gnutella filesharing programs. Give bittorrent a try! You don't know what ur missing.

Hmmmmm.....

I guess I could download it onto my secondary computer and see if it is safe first..........

Ok, but make sure that you get peer guardian 2 with it

http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/

It's an ip blocker that blocks movie industry ip addresses (reduces your chances of being caught committing copyright infringement).

I thought Only users in asia download movies , games and software using bittorrent celints isn't it Illegal in USA and UK ??

Uhhhhhh. hold on a min! This is all ilegall? No thanks pal!

My understanding is that it's illegal to share not download in the US and then only if the data is copyrighted.

Of course its illegal. But so many people do it that you can get anything you want with a very slim risk of being caught. The MPAA is so overwhelmed with people using bittorrent trackers to pirate files that they try to go after the trackers themselves (even though the trackers aren't doing anything wrong since the pirated files are on the computer of the user). All of my friends have been doing this for the past 2 years, and nothing went wrong. NO subpoenas, no fines, NOTHING. Come on, give it a try. You can even get entire windows operating systems for free on it.

All it it takes is once..........

My friends and I downloaded a ton of stuff. If we did not get caught, then you definitely will not.

Isnt it a felony if you are caught downloading "stuff"?

Yes, it is a felony, but the plaintiff has to go through a lengthy and very costly process to do it. Since so many people do it, the MPAA prefers to harass the bittorrent servers. And most of the time, you get a warning before charges are pressed (so you can just stop then and nothing will happen). Once in a blue moon, they press charges (or typically charge a fine) against someone with a blazing T1 connection that uploaded a few terrabytes worth of data. You won't get in trouble if you have a normal 768k connection and you just like to download a few movies per month. I am no rookie bittorrent user. I know what I'm talking about.