Testing anti-virus software is a tricky endeavour at the best of times, due to the inherent nasty nature of the test subject. For this anti-virus roundup, we asked independent anti-virus testing lab, AV-Test.org (www.av-test.org) to conduct the testing for us in their controlled environments. AV-Test.org has access to thousands of viruses, and is a respected anti-virus testing lab.

Do you have a business or are in charge of a business’ tech security? Get some tips from PC Authority’s experts.

Bigelows Virus Troubleshooting Pocket Reference provides a thorough review of malware (that is, malicious software).

All fun and games until someone loses a bank account.

Before widespread use of the Internet, computer viruses were not a common occurrence. Viruses could only be transferred via floppy disk, which meant that it was quite easy to guard against them

Sophos Anti-Virus is clearly aimed at the enterprise market, with the minimum purchase being a 10-user licence, renewable annually. Unlike some of the other packages, Sophos is available for most operating systems including Unix, Open VMS, NetWare and Macintosh.

Norman Virus Control is a very unobtrusive anti-virus program that sits in your system tray and performs much like Norton AntiVirus from Symantec. It scans all incoming emails, new files, removable media and downloaded files from the internet as a matter of course without any user interaction.

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.

Got a PC riddled with more viruses than a bus driver’s armpit? The PC Authority Labs team has tested 10 leading anti-virus packages to see which ones really deliver the goods and keep your PC clean.

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.

We've had a quick play with the new version - and we like what we see. Definitely one to stick in your PC toolkit for 2008.

Apple’s ads may be funny, but they’re woefully inaccurate. Here we reveal dozens of reasons why the PC outclasses the Mac.

Viruses are really nasty. Even though this fact seems self-evident we thought it was worth reinforcing, especially as there are still a many people who seem either happy enough, or are blissfully awar

AVG offers a free home user edition with free updates for the life of the product and that has made it popular with a lot of home PC users looking for a cheap anti-virus solution.

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.

One of the original anti-virus programs, Norton AntiVirus is one of the trusted standards. The current version is extremely easy to set up out of the box and, if you are regularly connected to the Internet, it will automatically keep itself up to date.

Will a beefed-up firewall, User Account Control and disk encryption make Vista a safer choice than XP?

We provide the commentary on a bruising eight-round battle between Vista and Tiger.

Security company Sophos has advised that the risk posed to mobile phone users by the Mabir worm is very low.