AVG 9, Microsoft Security Essentials and PC Tools Threatfire

You may have heard of Microsofts new free anti virus and spyware software, hearing about it is one thing but actually tracking it down is quite another.  Search for AVG and your first hit in Google is AVG's free download link, search for Microsofts free anti virus and its quite another matter, anyway, for those that are interested in trying it, here's the link http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ You'll need Genuine Advantage on your PC to install it however so for those of you that don't (for whatever reason..) you might want to carry on with AVG for now.

First impressions of MSE are that its pretty good, I've certainly noticed a reduction in boot time.  I haven't suffered with a major viruses (touch wood) for some time now, if that situation changes, I'll let you know and blame MSE!

I've also decided to run PC Tools Threatfire as well, this is supposed to identify suspicious activity on your computer without the need for an up-to-date Malware index.

AVG 9 looks pretty similar to 8.5, just a slightly appleified looking interface.  Upon installation it runs an optimisation scan, the idea behind this is to identify certain "concrete" features of your PC/Laptops harddisk so that it doesn't persistently check it on each virus scan theoretically speeding up scan times.