[maltasama]

I have been using the free Onecare trial and it's up in 14 days - I don't want to subscribe as it's being discontinued in June, so I need to know the best way to uninstall it cleanly. Is it sufficient to remove it the way Onecare tells you to? Once I do that, I would like to use the best free antiivirus/spyware available (AVG or Avast?). Suggestion/advice? Note the operative word is FREE (I'm financially challenged).
I'm using a Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, 20G HD 256kRAM (yeah, I know) Windows XP Home SP3 and I always use Firefox, NoScript, WOT, AdBlock Plus, never click on links in email, never open attachments, etc etc (can you tell I listen to Leo?)
Thanks in advance!

[Cheeseball81]

To uninstall Windows Live OneCare from XP:
Click Start, then click Control Panel.
Under Pick a category, click Add or Remove Programs.
Under Pick a task, click Remove a Program.
In the Currently installed programs list, click Windows Live OneCare, and then click Remove.

For an antivirus, I use AVG8.
I also use SpywareBlaster. There are many free programs available out there.
Including Ad-Aware, SpyBot Search and Destroy, SuperAntispyware, MalwareBytes.

[maltasama]

Thanks for your reply - I read on the OneCare help page that I had to go to Run and type in appwiz.cpl and select OneCare and remove it. Is that essentially the same thing? If not, which is better to do?I just want to get the whole humungous program out of my computer. Once I remove it, I should immediately download another antivirus/spyware program, right? (I mean,within seconds - I have this paranoia about evil worms and Trojans just lurking around waiting to pounce on my unprotected computer...) . Your help is very much appreciated, I know there aren't supposed to be any dumb questions but this feels dumb. http://static.techguy.org/smilies/confused.gif
Malta

[aka Brett]

Originally Posted by maltasama

Thanks for your reply - I read on the OneCare help page that I had to go to Run and type in appwiz.cpl and select OneCare and remove it. Is that essentially the same thing? If not, which is better to do?I just want to get the whole humungous program out of my computer. Once I remove it, I should immediately download another antivirus/spyware program, right? (I mean,within seconds - I have this paranoia about evil worms and Trojans just lurking around waiting to pounce on my unprotected computer...) . Your help is very much appreciated, I know there aren't supposed to be any dumb questions but this feels dumb. http://static.techguy.org/smilies/confused.gif
Malta

download your new av and save it rather than run it
then when you uninstall one care you can then intsall your new av without even being online

[maltasama]

Thanks for your help - I didn't know I could do that, thought I had to be online.I will download the av and install later.

[aka Brett]

welcome