Trade Show Guru

While I’m a big believer in the old saying “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” and almost always free isn’t free. But actually, sometime free really is free. One example is anti-virus programs. In the beginning, I thought to get good protection again computer viruses, I needed to pay for it, so I bought McAfee anti-virus, in part because it included “free lifetime virus updates.” I thought it was a fair deal to pay for the program and then get free lifetime updates (without regular updates, an antivirus program is worthless). I assumed lifetime meant lifetime, but to McAfee it meant the “lifetime” of that particular version, which was about one year! After a year, I wasn’t able to update the virus database anymore, and the version became worthless. Anyway, after that experience I switched over to AVG antivirus, which is free, and have been a huge fan of AVG for years. But about a month ago, I noticed that my Firefox browser (another truly free and truly awesome piece of software) was running slow, really slow. In fact, if I opened multiple browser windows, the previous windows would freeze up until the new window loaded, which could be ten seconds or more. It became worse and worse… painfully slow to “no go” at all. I was pretty sure I had a virus or bug, but a complete scan with AVG found nothing. Then, based on some recommendations I had read on multiple blogs, I decided to uninstall AVG and try a new (at least to me) free antivirus program called Avast. Well, I ran a scan with Avast and it found a DOZEN viruses, including the one causing my problems. Problem solved! I like that. So to AVG, I say “it’s been nice but I’m moving on.” And to Avast and Firefox, I say you rock. I’ll also mention two other free and awesome software programs. One is Malwarebytes. Although it missed this new virus, it found a “Vundo” virus I got several months ago that AVG let though. Kudos to the Master of the Philippines for recommending Malwarebytes. It too rocks! And I’m also a fan of Bad Behavior for blocking auto-spamming-zombies from accessing this blog. Bad Behavior rocks.

So the “moral” of this post is that sometimes free really is free, and Avast anti-virus is one example. The trade show guru recommends you check out the Avast anti-virus program, and let me know what you think.