In my opinion, anything is better than Norton AV (I spent more money on long-distance phone calls to Symantec than I did on their already expensive and problem plagued “Norton Systems Works” (sic) trying to get it to work -- let alone improve my system. The telephone support person confided to me that the program was faulty and not ready for release and that the phones were ringing off the hook). The AV program itself is over-hyped, sluggish and expensive.

While we're weighing in opinions:

I've used Norton for the past 2-3 years and have not had problems nor needed telephone support. It's caught all the viruses my machines managed to contract and I don't notice it slowing down my system. (I did install Systemworks a while back and that bloatware lasted 1 day on my system )

Other than NAV, I've only tried McAfee and found it to be unstable. I haven't tried any of the others because I haven't found a compelling reason to yet. If I had to pay $30 for NAV I'd would indeed try out the free one, but at $15 (plus the re-install trick), I'm not complaining.

Well, my Encyclopedia Britannica CD-ROM arrived yesterday - 15 days after I ordered it - which is pretty good considering they sent it regular letter mail for 57 cents - still it made it under the customs radar - and was the full standard encyclopedia as advertised - just no packaging. Still at $8.99US - $0.57US mailing, they must be making themselves a tidy little handling fee if they can get the software in some bulk deal - it looks like it the kind of thing that you get packaged in with a computer bundle.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I had a positive experience from freesoftwarenow.com.

Here's another outfit that sells OEM software at cheap prices: EastOutlet.com

(This came from our friends at RFD.)

Originally posted by bylo Here's another outfit that sells OEM software at cheap prices: EastOutlet.com

Nifty. Though you'll have to remember to order each item seperately to avoid customs. Good selection -- MS Word for $26US isn't too shabby.

Just a heads up on freesoftwarenow.com - when I checked my VISA bill - they had triple charged me for the Encylopedia Britannica disk that I ordered from them. On the positive side, they quickly straightened it out when I telephoned them.

Check your credit card statements!