Just about all of us have probably been hit at one time or another by a virus, trojan, or ended up with that dreaded blue screen of death. It’s certainly not fun when it happens. These days, simply running Norton in the background often just isn’t enough. Thankfully, there are several really good programs out there to download (free!) that help us to protect our computer from any nasties trying to worm their way in.

Keep reading for some favorites that are really worth a try.

You’d think that with all the viruses, malware, spyware and what not on Windows, Microsoft would offer some sort of protection. Well, actually it does, currently the service costs $49.95 per year and is called Microsoft Live OneCare. It’s one of the many things Microsoft has that’s easy to forget about. That’s not a bad thing, though, as it will be leaving on June 30, 2009.

To replace OneCare, Microsoft is working on “Morro.” Morro is the project-name for its new, free virus protection program. According to the Reuters article, Morro is being designed to work on “smaller, less powerful computers.” That probably means it is being made to work with netbooks. Continued after the break.