which free antivirus+firewal solution for windows 98 would you recomend ?

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personally, zone alarm & AVG, as both are free and AVG takes up little resources compared to the likes of norton. but, thats just my opinion

Sygate FW and AVG (or Avast!) AV

ZoneAlarm & Nod32 are the very best your gonna get

For simple and little interferance I say Sygate and AVG which is what Ive always setup for others on their pc and dont forget CCleaner and a decent Spyware AdWawre app like AdWare although there are other choices for AV wgich may be better although I havent used them although I really must say I think after using it quite a bit ZA is shit since especially for a file sharing type pc setup...

get sygate as it uses very small system resources and grab Nod32 , @ Reality i dont use avg anymore as since the upgrade to the new free vesion its gotten pretty clogged up and does use a far amount of your system resources now

sygate/zonealarm and nod32 (hopefully that works in 98!).

Well hell... if you just utilize eMule/eDonkey, some of the more premium set-ups (i.e. Symantec Client Security... izzy's personal pick :D ) can be "free" also. :)