How can you install a virus protection?

How can you install a virus protection one an Acer Aspire One, if it has no CD ROM? :?:

 

Umm...

Download an executable file (.exe on windows) from the AV manufacturer website and double click on it when it's finished downloading?

It really is that simple. You do not need a CD to install AV software on any machine. You do not need AV software if you're using a One with Linux installed.

 

You can download the software directly, (like the other poster said), you could use an external cd-rom drive, you could use a USB flash drive, you could use an SD card, you can email it to yourself, you could access it via a shared folder/cd-rom on a networked computer, or you coudl use one of those USb link cables. Did I leave any out?

 

http://www.avast.com

 

My favorite free antivirus program is Avira, from http://www.free-av.com There is also AVG, at http://free.avg.com, but with their last program update, it got rather bloated. Avira is much less of a drain on system resources.

Most anti-virus programs, free or not, have a version you can download and install. Usually even the non-free ones have a free trial you can install - you basically pay for a subscription to the updates. (And yes, you really do need updates. Otherwise the software won't detect newly developed viruses. I can't tell you how many computers I've disinfected where the owner thought they were protected because they had AV software installed, but hadn't updated it in a year.)

From some of the reviews I've read, Avast and Avira are pretty close as far as not slowing down a system, but Avast has slightly more false positives. (saying a file is a virus when it isn't.)

If you decide to pay for AV software, stay away from Symantec/Norton. The Symantec Corporate edition was pretty good last time I used it, but their home-use software will drag your PC to a halt. I use Trend-Micro at work, and have been satisfied, but I've got several friends that swear by NOD32, and I'm thinking of trying it out at work next time our Trend-Micro subscription is up.

 

Actually I've been using Norton 360 v2.0 on my AAO for quite some time now and it performs VERY nicely. At the moment its using less than 10mb of RAM and it got very high ratings on av-comparatives.org in the last batch of tests. So don't knock Norton out of the race just yet.

FYI: I've hated Norton for years and swore never to use any Norton products, but after seeing the independent results and testing it for myself I must say that I am very impressed with the new 360 by Norton.

 

Beware if your machine came with an AV on it it more then likely will need a dedicated removal tool from the vendor!

 

My experience has been that McAfee will come off wih the windows program removal tool, and Norton seems to need their own removal tool.

Fortunately the Aspire seems to come with McAfee.