you can opt on for
Avast Free or
AVG Free I suggest you also use
Spybot Search and Destroy along with an anti-virus as it will give added protection its fairly easy to use and is light on the system too.
In the case of avast,
avast! 4 Home Edition works for 60 days after the installation in demo mode. You will obtain your FREE license key by E-mail after the registration. The license key is valid for 1 year. After one year you will need to just re-register.
You can register for free here.
And as vijay very rightly said keep your windows as updated as possible. And try and avoid pirated software coz thatz one of the main entry points for malware and spyware to get into your system. It is not always necessary to buy a peice of software to get a particular functionality. Now a days there are a lot of freeware programs that offer as good functionality (and in some cases even better ! 😉 😛 ) than a paid program.
For a comprehensive list check out
this post at
Bleeping Computer (another excellent site I recommend personally to all beginners and pros) while you're at it do also check out their tutorials they are designed for all users....
Hope that helps.
tejas
Edited by albusdumbledore - 18 years ago