anti-virus for less-technical users?

[cellio]

Somebody asked me this morning for help finding reliable advice about anti-virus software for his PC. He's currently using Norton (I don't know details, including what updates he's getting). I think he's going to need to find something simple -- fire-and-forget would be best (so automatic updates, at least). Who out there is currently doing reasonable neutral product comparisons in this area (Windows, not Mac)? If I could point him to one site where he could learn enough to make a decision, what would that site be?

I did talk with him about hygiene, it being far better to *avoid getting* viruses than to clean them up after. He says he's not opening unknown attachments or browsing in bad neighborhoods (though we didn't talk about how he would know, so I don't know if that's correct), but he's getting a lot of viruses and trojans. Or warnings about them, anyway; I haven't dismissed the possibility that he's picked up some malware that's doing that.

Comments

[cahwyguy]

Look at the comparisons on PCWorld. I'm currently using Avast, a free AV tool, which works pretty well.

[damont]

I also use Avast, which has the advantage of having versions for MacOS and Linux as well.