I've been a console gamer for years. I wouldn't call myself a "Nintendo Fanboy," but I will admit to never finding any good reasons to ever buy any other kind of console.

Now I'm a Windows PC gamer... unlike consoles which (at least until recently) just worked, Windows PCs need special types of coddling. Antivirus, antispyware, firewalls for operating in hostile network environments... I wanted a simple solution that just worked.

So I found Bitdefender GameSafe.

[i]Oh and did I mention it's free?[/i] (For 90 days at least)

I never used my PC for anything except programming and reading webcomics... but then I played the most awesome PC team shooter game ever: [url=http://gamium.org/AutoDMC/Team_Fortress_II]Team Fortress II[/url]

This put me in a pickle; my computer was built for typing, not fragging! So I went out and built a completely new sweet rig, and here I am.

Up until 30 days ago, I used a combination of Clamwin Antivirus (an open source on demand virus scanner), Windows Defender (Microsoft's in house spyware blocker and scanner), and Windows Firewall (comes free with Windows!) to secure my PC. But Clamwin was a bit slow, and I really wasn't impressed with the performance of all these separate tools.

Then I found Bitdefender GameSafe. It's a special package by Bitdefender of their award winning anti-everything software, retooled in a gamer friendly package.

Some benefits:

1) Bitdefender is quite sippy when it comes to processor use, which is nice as it's scanning all background traffic. Ever have Norton pop up during a frag-fest? *shivers*

2) Bitdefender has a game mode, where with one keystroke (originally set to Control-G), you can tell Bitdefender to "Shut the *$&# up!" and it won't give you any warnings about anything during your gaming session. No pop ups, nothing.

3) Bitdefender has one of the highest detection rates for both known (signature) viruses, and unknown-but-acting-like-virus viruses.

4) Bitdefender uses virtualization technology to run programs it finds on your computer in virtual computer lock boxes, looking for suspicious activity. It does this in the background when your computer is idle anyway. How neat is that!

5) All the functions for computer security all exist in one window, so no matter what security-type thing you need to do you can easily get to where you need to be!

Now, for the downside: When you first install Bitdefender it will pester you about each and every program that dares look at your net connection. Kinda like a certain Mac and PC commercial:

Difference between Windows Vista User Access Control Pre SP1 and Bitdefender is that Bitdefender actually remembers when you give permission!

Also, should default options not be good enough for you, getting into the interface is a bit sticky, and the internal controls aren't really that helpful.

All in all, however, Bitdefender Gamesafe is an excellent all-in-one Windows Security package, for a pretty sweet price: $24.95

Their website is a bit condesending toward gamers... like a Mac junkie trying to be cool and gamerlike. Just ignore that and download the product. The trial is good for 90 days!

http://www.bitdefender.com/media/html/gamesafe.html

And if you decide that you don't really want to pay for the package, there's always [url=http://www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en--BitDefender-Free-Edition.html]Bitdefender Free[/url], which is just the virus-und-spyware scanning bit of Bitdefender Gamesafe. Take that, Windows Defender, and Windows Firewall and you have a pretty close approximation of Gamesafe, but without the unified interface.