| Being in the computer cleaning buisiness, I can tell you numerous free alternatives to subscription based virus and spyware protection such as Norton and McAfee.
A great and thourough virus scanner is called AVG Free, its made by a company called grisoft (www.grisoft.com) Or just google it.
A good spyware program as most people know, is Spybot: Search and destroy. Some people dont like it much because theres specualations that its spyware itself, recieving their definitions from about 12 other different servers, then sending it to you. Dont worry about that, I can assure you its 100% safe, no spies in your computer. Another great spyware/adware program that works perfectly when partnered with Spybot, Is a program called Ad-Aware. Its very thourough as well.
All these programs are relatively popular, just google the name I provided, and you should be up and running. I use all these programs myself, and couldnt ask for more from them.
Hope that helps, any other question you got, Ill be glad to help you. | 
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