A Few ?'s 4 Tech Heads/sett'in up my new Acer PC..

[JINKSTER]

So...needed an updated opsys for the microsoft zune hd's i bought my daughters for christmas..wasn't about to blow $150 on a new opsys for my 8 year old sony tower (i had already replaced the HD in once)..figured whats next?..i buy and install a new opsys and then next month the video card or power source take a shid on me?..no way..besides...8 years?..think i got my monies worth out of our relic of our good ole sony tower that was still running XP 2003 that stopped being supported back in 07/10..and since cash was tight?..it wasn't gonna be another top shelfer..and settled for a $498 acer aspire AM3900 desktop from chinamart..but was happy to see it came with..

HD: 1 Terabite (1000 gig hard-drive)
Ram: 6 Gigs
Processor: Intel Pentium E5500

and my questions are as follows..

1. Of course it came loaded with Mcaffee and Norton antivirus but...i hate them both due to lock out issues in the past when i didn't pay to "re-up"..cause i found and love the free stuff from alwil/avast (which i've already downloaded and am running now) and the avast imho has done a fine job so...i wanna blow out the Mac-a-FEE and norton av programs so i don't keep getting the pop-up BS and always clicking "Remind Me Later"..is it cool to blow'em both out (via remove programs) and count on avast for this new opsys of windows home 7 premium?

2. What search engine toolbar should i employ...BING or Google or Both and?..why/why not?

That's all for now but i'm sure i'll have a few more questions later and while i believe acer has given me a lot for my $?..the one thing they dont give away for free is tech support..appreciate your help and opinions and?..

TIA L8R, Bill.

 

[skydivr]

1. Yes delete via add/remove programs
2. Both are acceptable as they will both give you similar but not identical results

 

[kml]

Opera browser
google search

Opera browser | Faster & safer internet | Free download

cheers
ken

 

[omslaw]

Yep - you can remove both of the preinstalled AV programs.

Personally, I don't install ANY search toolbar. Any program that wants to install a toolbar, I will uncheck the installation of said toolbar or I if I'm not given the choice to do so, I will not install the program. :2cents:

Internet Exploder has a built-in search feature. It comes preconfigured for Bing (of course), but I quickly replace that with Google - just go into Internet Options and change it.

That said, I use Firefox 99.9% of the time and it comes preconfigured for Google search.

 

[VIPER]

i agree kill nortons and mcafee both are overated junk. Next i think you are running a good one. AGV is also a good one if you start having problems.
as far as browsers go i would use firefox and i would use google myself. Seems like its a little less of a memeory hog.

 

[GsxrBots]

AVG and Firefox here. I can't stand Internet Explorer after making the switch to Firefox. You won't be upset if you make the switch. It's SO much faster, it's crazy.
Plus it hardly ever crashes. I can honestly remember like 2 crashes in the last 2 years. And when it does crash, it remembers the pages you were on, which is a fantastic thing!

 

[Strife]

avg and firefox here. I can't stand internet explorer after making the switch to firefox. You won't be upset if you make the switch. It's so much faster, it's crazy.
Plus it hardly ever crashes. I can honestly remember like 2 crashes in the last 2 years. And when it does crash, it remembers the pages you were on, which is a fantastic thing!

^this!^

 

[Twist The Throttle]

+2 on the above

 

[RPGonzo]

Yep, AVG Free is awesome for the price ... free ... lately the consumer sector of AVs are just horrid, our corporate one that we deploy here is actually pretty good but mainly because I have control over what and how it affects the system.

Firefox is my favorite browser, if I'm not using that I'm using Safari, IE is last resort.

Have fun

 

[outlawbusa]

i agree kill nortons and mcafee both are overated junk.

+1

Hope Nortons is easier to uninstall than it used to be...used to be that just removing the program did not work once your subscription expired, and it embedded itself in multiple places including your registry.

I believe I had to remove a $90 Nortons program from at least 5 different places a few years ago. I don't think it's so agressive these days as it used to be.

McAfee usually uninstalls pretty simply from the ad remove programs feature...

 

[VIPER]

it is still a pain in the butt to remove. do it before it expires for sure.

 

[RPGonzo]

Symantecs uninstaller is actually pretty good about removing everything now, whether it's expired or not. But that's with the newer installs which yours should have being a new computer. If your not comfy with toying with the Win Reg than download and install CCleaner, it has a reg cleaner that is actually decent and as long as you don't go changing settings fairly safe to run. Reason i mention this is there are still a few reg keys that need to be cleaned out just to make sure its 100%, but it's not a deal killer either.

I quiver thinking about the loads of computers I had to manually uninstall that wretched program.