With the prevalence of Net connections and all the good things a connected society brings such as community, the ability to share ideas and the openness of information, comes the flipside of digital life -- hackers, spyware, viruses and spam.

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

PC-cillin 2000 is extremely easy to set up out of the box, particularly since there are few setup screens to wade through during installation. PC-cillin was one of the few packages that scanned memory and critical files before installing, thus ensuring that it did not further spread viruses on an infected system.

PC-cillin is no longer just an anti-virus program - it is a full internet security suite that includes a personal firewall and spam filtering - and it costs between $20 and $40 less than the equivalent Norton product.

A broad and likeable package, but needs better malware detection.

Feature-packed and good value, but it’s slow, has too many pop-ups and a less-than-perfect firewall.

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

A well-featured package with some unusual tricks that falls just short of a first-rate performance.

A little lacking in the feature department, the P4G8X Deluxe is lean in some big areas. Short 800MHz, DDR400 or DDR333 support, its biggest selling points are its BlueMagic PCI slot, inclusion of PC-cillin antivirus software, and ASUS PC Probe for system monitoring.

Norton AntiVirus (NAV) remains the world’s most popular anti-virus program -and for good reason. It is the ideal set-and-forget anti-virus protection that is as close to idiot-proof as anyone has yet got. However, it is not the cheapest and some of its competitors, such as PC-cillin now offer more for the money.

Kapersky Antivirus has been around for some time and often pops up on home computers as the uneducated user’s anti-virus software of choice. Unfortunately, it really isn’t as user friendly a program as it should be for novice users.

While this Spanish anti-virus program is hardly a household name in Australia at present, it is gaining in popularity through its availability on the internet. Its low cost (around $78) and plentiful features have been a strong selling point for people looking for something a little less expensive than the popular Norton or Trend Micro products.