M4400 best x64 anti-virus..free of course?

Hello all, I am about to take delivery of a new M4400 with all the bells and whistles, running vista ultimate 64, and plan to upgrade to Win 7 in the near future.
My faithful Latitude D600 circa 2003 has been running on AVG free edition and without significant issues, and also I am using Zone alarm as the firewall.
I am not certain you can get these in 64 bit, or even if they are the better solutions these days, so looking for alternatives.
All suggestions are most appreciated
Thanking all in advance!

 

Hi Offshore tiger

AVG and Avast! have good reputations and should run fine on x64 versions of Windows. Microsoft have a great free anti-malware program called Security Essentials, but it's still in private beta. It should be ready later this year, though, so look out for that (I'm testing it and it's very good).

As for Zone Alarm, I wouldn't bother reinstalling it, as it's not very good these days. Windows' own firewall is usually sufficient, and if not there's always your router's built-in protection. Zone Alarm used to be good back in the day, but the last I heard it has become slow and bloated as with a lot of security software.

 

Thanks Jonty, that's very useful info. I too have noticed that ZA is quite chunky. I guess I am guilty of ignoring the latest trends, probably because my system is stable and has been for many years, so have not bothered on improving just for the sake of it. I have also never had a virus on my machine, and yes I realise I have probably just jinxed it!

 

Free Avira FTW. Btw, this should be in the Windows (software) forum. Look there, since there are several threads devoted to antivirus programs.

 

Avast runs perfectly on my m4400 64bit

 

avira iz the best!

 

I am using Avast as well no issues.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone, and my apologies for posting in the wrong forum....should have been in the Windows software area, ther is even a dedicated thread for it, doh.
Incidentally, I have now seen the expected delivery date for the new 4400, which is over a month from order, not the "7-10 days" in the quote.

 

well normally dell puts some ridiculously far away delivery date, but it arrives much earlier anyway

 

I also run Avast on x64 and it runs fine...