The honest answer is, not as effective as you would hope considering the price you’re paying for the privilege of running these programs.  All of the aforementioned programs really only have a 30-50% detection rate when it comes to malware, viruses, and Trojans.  That means despite having dedicated security updates, the program’s scanning ability, a chief draw when we’re talking antivirus software, is pretty much lackluster at best.  Severely disappointing when you consider the amount of money you’ve probably shelled out on these programs over the years.

But probably the biggest factor that bothers me, and that should bother everyone, is the massive amount of freeware virus removal tools that seem to perform more effectively than any pay service.  Take Ad-Aware, and Spyware Doctor for example.  Both of these programs are completely free, and yet they tend to find more malware, viruses, worms, and Trojans than any of the pay services, and that completely bugs me.

What is it that the free programs do, that the pay services can’t achieve with their virus scanning?

Sure Norton is going to be better for you than a free antivirus program in the sense that it offers a fairly ironclad firewall, email scanning, and auto-protect against known viruses and malware as you surf the internet, all features that the free stuff doesn’t have.  But how useful are the preventative measures if Norton can’t detect the bad stuff that seeps through it’s protection?

I guess it’s pretty annoying, but you sort of have to take the free with the pay services, because the costly antivirus programs are fantastic at preventing virus intrusions, but you need programs like Ad-Aware and Spyware Doctor to detect all the stuff AVG, Norton or McAfee are going to miss.

The only people making any money off this scam are the ones selling you their LIST. The other thing that happens when you get to their web site is that they collect your information and pretty soon you’ll get millions of advertisement emails from people wanting to:

• Give you a credit card (Read the fine print! There are usually exorbitant fees associated with these credit card offers!)
• Sell you insurance
• Sign you up for FREE stuff
• Get you to enter their contest

Again, what happens when you click on any of these so-called “Offers” is that somebody somewhere will try to collect your name, email address and phone # and any other information they can come by.

The other thing that happens though, and this is worse, is that they can covertly install spyware, Adware and other types of malicious software on your computer. Now you’ve got a whole new set of problems. You’ve got to purchase one of those anti-spyware programs to get all that junk off your computer.

But there are legitimate ways to earn a living online. More and more people and companies are realizing how easy it is to hire a “virtual assistant” or data entry person who can accomplish their tasks from anywhere in the world simply using their computer and the internet.

This may well be the future of mankind’s workforce. Who knows? It’s certainly catching on. But you must do your own research into these companies. And you must be wary of all the fakes that are out there. There will always be scammers and people looking to earn a quick, easy buck.

As with all of life, you get what you put into any project. Even online work is going to require hours and effort on your part in order to get that paycheck.