BleepingComputer.com: What Virus Protection Should I Use?

My school provided me with Macafee Enterprise (the corporate edition) which I was told is not suggested for home use. I am assuming they were just covering their own asses while I was on the schools network in the dorms. I am moving off campus and was wondering which virus software would be best to run on my computer.

Also, has my computer been protected while I've been at home? I am worried that since the virus software has no server to communicate with I have not been recieving proper updates nor has it been able to pick anything up. Any help, suggestions, etc. would be awesome. If there is anything I can run as a trial version for now it would be great, as my funds are limited at the moment.

Many members (of whom I am one) here use AVG Free Edition, although there are several other good free AVs available. In addition to any AVG, you should have a resident Firewall and several anti-spyware applications on your hard drive.
Links to member-recommended freeware can be found here:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic3616.html

I would suggest you proceed on the premiss that your computer has NOT been protected during the summer, and spend some quality time downloading, installing, updating, and running your anti-malware applications.
What? You want to leave the dorms? "Flush twice, it's a long way to the cafeteria."
Regards,
John

So what I take from your post is that during intersessions my computer has indeed been susceptible to viruses... has it been protected at all? This is truly frustrating because I heard nothing of this until a week ago. You would figure a college, or a program as reputible as Macafee would give some sort of warning as to when my computer is not protected.

Should I completely uninstall Macafee then?

I installed AVG Free and while scanning Spy Sweeper is saying that it is trying to make changes to my host file.... should I allow or block these changes?

You should only have one AV running real time protection.
I advise you uninstall/disable Macafee, before enabling AVG.

Allow the changes AVG wants to make.

How do I know if I have enabled AVG realtime protection? I have already disabled Macafee's though..

It should have been enabled when you installed it.

The first thing you should do is right click the AVG icon in the Taskbar, by the clock, and select Launch AVG Control Center.
At the top, on the Toolbar, click Information and select Help Topics.
Read the Help file.
It will explain how to set up, and run AVG.