Try these.
Free Anti Virus
www.nod32.com
www.onecare.com - Free Microsoft Antivirus and Registry cleaner
http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml
Bewary of AVG. You need at least 2GB of RAM and remove memory hungry programs from your startup.
Best free Firewalls.
COMODO
Zone Alarm
Free Spyware & Malware removal tools.
www.superantispyware.com - Free version is manual update
www.malwarebytes.org - Free Version is manual update
Anti virus Ones to Avoid.
AOL or Yahoos free ones - as they are useless
Anything by Norton / Symantec as it uses to much memory and slows your machine down.
Best ISPs.
Virgin
Sky
BT
Orange Livebox
Avoid like the plague
AOL - Stupid software takes up too much memory and slows down machine
NTL - Stupid Software takes up too much memory and slows down machine
Toolbars
Remove them totally from the add/remove programs in control panel as they slow your machine down. Google, Yahoo, Orange etc etc.
Windows XP should startup from splash screen to desktop within less than 12 seconds.
If it doesn't then you have too many useless programs installed on your PC.
Vista should start up in less than 8 seconds.
Make sure that your Hosts file is not hijacked.
Download Spybot seek and destroy and READ the instructions.
Choose advance mode and check the hosts file.
Everything should be pointing to 127.0.0.1
Cleanup your system with
www.ccleaner.com
http://www.stevengould.org/index.php?Itemid=70&id=28&option=com_content&task=view
(With cleanup make sure the favourites is NOT TICKED otherwise you will loose all your favourites)
For those that use IE6. Update to IE7.
Make sure that your internet folder is using 20mb of diskspace and no more.
Occasionally cleanup your favourites list.
Get rid of your any "free" video and media CODECs and purchase the ones from Nero, or Copy DVD, as nearly all free CODECs come with spyware, malware or trojan viruses.
Defrag your harddrives in Safe mode
Startup PC/Laptop and keep tapping F8 until a black screen appears and choose safe mode. PC graphics might look weird but choose programs, Accessories, System tools and Disk Cleanup.
Then after that go through the same menus and choose defragmenter.
For those that have large HDD's or multiple HDD's on their system.
Lookup JKDefrag on google and download it (Zip file).
And last but not least, UPDATE your windows using the UPDATE windows icon.
And choose CUSTOM as there are more updates in terms of your hardware drivers and other important Windows updates such as .NET for better web security.
Those with Non genuine versions of Windows..... Hang on and stick with the free downloads and then wait until Windows 7 ULTIMATE is available.
Don't buy PC's from PC World or Dixons or Currys. Build your own from
www.overclockers.co.uk
Don't buy a system with VISTA on it.... Don't buy over 4GB of RAM, as you are wasting your money as Windows Page file on XP, Vista and Windows 7 only uses a Max of 4GB.
Surf safe guys and gals.....