this list excludes the AV i consider the best. Avast! is superb, and does not need much resources to do its thing.

I think AVG Free is awesome. I am using MS Security Essentials Beta on a “new” (but used) tablet PC that just came my way to see how it goes; but I really like AVG.

I switched from Norton AV several years ago as it continued to gobble up more and more resources. I’ve been using AVG free for about 5 years. About once a year, I check with another AV porgram and have been found to be clean. I like AVG and will stay with it for now.

AVG is still my best favorite, although the free version is in English only, which sometimes create problems when I recommend it to my French friends.
Avast is my second best choice, but I have been happy with AVG for several years.

I’ve tried all of them and my vote goes to Avira AntiVir Personal… With my limited use of the MS Security Essentials, it’s not bad, but uses more resources than Avira and I haven’t really put it to a test with a real virus yet.

I’m using AVG for 5 years also and never had any problems. Combined with Spy Bot Search & Destroy its an excellent combo.

I’ve read the same article and tried Avast for the sake of it, and found that it’s a bit heavier on resources than AVG with Spybot combined. But the scan times are one third of AVG which is a very good, unless Avast don’t scan as deep as AVG on the default settings.

Nonetheless I’m testing Avast on the long run on my Server machine which crawls a bit with TeaTimer enabled (It’s a Athlon XP 2400+) and found that on there Avast is more light on resources than AVG + Spybot. Go figure. Let’s see how it turns out.

btw, AVG has always kind of been strange, but not bad until the most recent version… It got bloated and resource hungry and doesn’t seem to do as good of a job as Avira

i vote for avg but i think the pro version much better

Ron, your article pointer points to your own edit screen, which shows nothing, and says “you aren’t allowed to edit this article”.

Hi Marc,
Thank you for the correction.

prip - Avast is listed #2

Thanks for all of the comments everyone.

I once used AVG, a long time ago. Everyone knows it’s practically worhless. All the rest are resource hogs, or wanna install some B.S. tool bar. Cough up the dough for NOD32 if you have a machine that’s worth a damn.

[...] What Is The Best Free Anti Virus Program? You Decide  lockergnome.com) [...]

I don’t like free stuffs when it comes to security.
I have been using ZoneAlarm Security Suite for years now and it’s perfect. Very cheap and easy to use and I do believe Norton is the worse of them all. By the way I am using ZoneAlarm with Windows defender (from Microsoft). The trick is to set their scanning processes on different times.

I’ve always used AVG free. But yesterday I stopped the scan after 7 hours and it was still starting and stopping. I will give it one more chance….

Heh Goose,
Let us know what happens.

…. POOR - Gooose

– AND - I almost Forgot — my vote is - AVG

[...] What Is The Best Free Anti Virus Program? You Decide  lockergnome.com) [...]

Until a month ago I would have picked Avast. I’ve had less problems with the program than with AVG. However, I picked up Panda Cloud Anti-virus four weeks ago and am very impressed. My biggest criticism, which I just wrote about on my own site, is the program is so unobtrusive, I sometimes forget it is there.

In reference to the “best” antivirus program, I must support Clamwin. I used AVG for several years after I became frustrated with Norton and it’s “take over” programming.

However, I found that as time went on AVG became more and more bloated and was becoming less effective. (Several viruses showed up on my system)

I came accross the Clamwin reference in a Lockergnome Nexus publication about 2 years ago. I tried it. Found it small, clean and amazingly effective. I have had 0 virus problems since I began using this program.

Clamwin gets my vote.

Switch to avira and you all will be happy. I have always used and recommended AVG, but I have had numerous problems with it not detecting viruses. I installed Avira on a computer AVG said was clean, it found 4 diff types of trojans. Since then I have been more than happy making the switch. The only annoying thing is the update add that comes up after an update - but knowing your computer is safe, and for free, its so worthit!

it is the worlds most effective anti virus but it is not free

Like many of you I have been using AVG for many years and even had the Pro version for a while as I need it for XPx64 (well i couldn’t at the time decide on a free version that I liked that was available for an XPx64 sys) but i have been having difficulties today and yesterday with updating it wont run scans just tries to initialize and yes with every update games and generally the whole system has slowed so i’ll be taking a look thanks for the info.

Craig,
Let us know if you find the answer to the problem.
TIA, Ron

I used AVG for years but the newest version that (recommends) you also use their toolbar turned out to be a big headache. The email scan stopped working and with that not working it would not scan at all. I have had to restore my computer twice because I was not able to uninstall AVG. I did use Norton a long time ago but they require you to pay yearly and I am not sure it was worth it. I am currently looking for a new program and keep falling for the FREE when they mean FREE DOWNLOAD. I am going to try Aviar next.