Are you looking for free anti-virus software that also offers a firewall? One of our developers had the same dilemma. He wrote this little saga about his search.
The hunt started last month when my subscription for the Zonealarm Internet Security suite ended. Though the Zonealarm product is a combination of a full fledged Anti-virus that also offers a firewall plus anti-spyware; it did have some sore points including being a resource hog on my 4 year old laptop, especially when it went into scanning mode. The auto-update feature would slowdown all other applications during the update cycle and would not let him quickly shut it down. So I would sit there twiddling my thumbs for quite a while the machine whirred and did its stuff.
When the time came to renew it, I looked at the options: I could stick with the current one and upgrade to the latest version which promised to be faster and lighter or I could look at other options. Since the older laptop was not my primary machine, I wasn't so keen on spending anything extra on it.
I considered searching for and installing some reliable freeware versions. Googled around and found a lot of options. Most of them were stand alone free antivirus software or free firewalls. Lots of excellent choices to select from, tried & tested and commented on by many , but I wanted to make things even easier on myself. I wanted just one package with both features; Anti-virus that also offers a firewall. This would be a simpler affair, letting me configure and control all settings from a single interface.
A single package would also be smaller and use up less resources. I checked out the reviews on several options and finally settled on a product called Comodo Internet Security, which has a free version for non-commercial use. Apart from the Antivirus + Firewall, it also has an Anti-spyware too. Downloaded it, installed and rebooted and viola! I was all set.
Performance-wise, I have no complaints. It does its job without taking up too much of the system processor time and has enough options and features to let me fine tune it to my requirements. So here I am, a happy man! If you are looking for a similar option, just fire up Google and search around for free Anti-virus that also offers a firewall, do a little bit of research on which one best fits your bill and go ahead with it.
