People on ST seem very knowledgable about a lot of things, so I thought I’d try my luck here.
I’m buying a new PC on Wednesday and am looking for the “best” free antivirus download. I use (and pay for) Norton on my current PC, but it seems to slow down my PC a lot. I’m looking for something that is user-friendly that won’t slow down my PC too much.
Please no “buy a Mac” responses 
Thanks for everyone’s help!
AVG works really well
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I posed the same question here (well in the Lav. Room) a while back and someone there also responded about AVG. It wasn’t a free download, but the cost was very reasonable. I’ve used free in the past and found you get what you paid for which is why I wanted to buy something good this time. Been using AVG for about a year now and very happy with it.
Also agree about Norton. Great virus protection but the last computer I used it on, it slowed everything down a lot.
Mike,
Does AVG run automatice updates? Is this a subscription-based service?
Thanks.
+1 for AVG
The “best” is always debatable, but it’s definitely good enough.
And, it IS free. http://free.avg.com/
Bjorn
+2 AVG
It is free and there are auto update reminders.
You can pay and get additional services but the free version should cover your needs.
AVG is free for the consumer one with none of the options that you dont need anyway.
Norton freaking blows, almost as bad as McCafee and Vipre.
N=1 opinion here.
I’ve had success with avast antivirus software for many years now. None of the computers I’ve used with this software installed from the beginning have ever had any viruses. The free version can be downloaded from avast.com at the following link:
Any benefit to paying for AVG Internet Security vice the free version or is the difference just profit for AVG?
Rarely is “free” the lowest cost software. But, AVG is a very good product. Most users find that the VERY low charge of the full Internet Suite is still a bargain compared to alternatives.
You can find difference here: http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
Any benefit to paying for AVG Internet Security vice the free version or is the difference just profit for AVG?
Internet Security is great, if you want to slow your system
Yeah, that’s what I suspected.
Try Malwarebytes Anti-malware. I had some vicious stuff crashing my machine last week and this cleared it up.
I used to avg, now I use clamwin. Its a windows port of the clamAV package and seems to work really well.
Try Malwarebytes Anti-malware. I had some vicious stuff crashing my machine last week and this cleared it up.
Just to be clear, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a cleaning tool (and a good one), not a preventative scanning utility. It won’t keep you from getting anything.
Oh, and if you decide the free options aren’t sufficient you can’t go wrong with ESET NOD32. It’s pretty cheap and will not slow your system down. It’s the only AV I’ve ever kept more than a few weeks becuase of the performance losses they usually bring.
the free AVG has been fine for me, on 3 different machines, win 2000, xp and vista. No noticeable slowdown, no infections (yet, knock on wood).
I’ve used Clamwin as well, but it only does disk scans, whereas AVG does active scanning as you browse/read email.
Also make sure to turn on Windows Firewall and Windows Defender.
The other app I like to run is Winpatrol,
http://www.winpatrol.com
which watches for apps trying to install themselves, change the hosts files, install Windows Services, etc. It has lots of other useful functionality. Also free, but send a few bucks to Bill by buying the Plus version.