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My computer has passed a year of age, and the Norton antivirus subscription that came with it just expired. I'm not paying to continue notorious bloatware, so what free antiviruses are good these days? I used to use AVG, but it seemed to me that it got more and more resource-intensive as time and versions went on, so I ask the forum.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a really good bet these days. I know it's counterintuitive, Microsoft having a good, free offering? But it's true, it's one of the better free ones out there, and very lightweight.

I came into this thread to recommend Microsoft Security Essentials, too. By now it has become the only PC security product I trust. It's also subjectively the least "intrusive" of the lot.

I think it's getting to the point where threads that ask this question could just have a 'MSE /end thread' reply as standard.

How about 'be amazed at the extra performance now you're not unning horrid shit 24/7'. :v

MSE doesn't do much for malware, but I've never had any so who cares? Stop using porn dialers.

To provide another voice than MSE... I've always had good results with Avast antivirus, free, lightweight, etc

Does anyone else have a problem with MSE sometimes causing Firefox to lock up? This can last for a few minutes, or until I lose patience and use Task Manager to kill the process.

Negative, Jo. You're the first I've run across that problem, either at home or professionally. I suspect there's something else going on, some third party that's triggering the lockup as a symptom.

When I had wierd chrome locks it wasn't MSE, it was a failing drive.

White Haven wrote:Negative, Jo. You're the first I've run across that problem, either at home or professionally. I suspect there's something else going on, some third party that's triggering the lockup as a symptom.

If it is it isn't showing up with anything, MSE, Adaware, Malwarebytes, etc.

I've had good experiences with both MSE and Avast.

Avast is a good choice as well. I prefer MSE, but when I run into customer systems that are otherwise in working order but just have a hate-on for letting MSE install (which does happen, Microsoft couldn't code an installer if the fate of the world depended on it), I just throw Avast on instead rather than bashing my head into it.

That's odd. The only problems I've ever had installing MSE happen when the person I'm installing it for has a pirated copy of Windows that won't pass WGA.

It doesn't happen often in clean systems, but sometimes leftover OS damage can leave a system unable to install MSE after virus cleanup.

Also, I want to killfuckerize whoever at Microsoft thought it was a good idea to use Windows Installer and Windows Update for MSE. News flash, fuckers, viruses sometimes break those, particularly the latter.

Can we perhaps make a sticky thread with antivirus info inside? It will save us another wave of "what to use" posts in the future.

White Haven wrote:Also, I want to killfuckerize whoever at Microsoft thought it was a good idea to use Windows Installer and Windows Update for MSE. News flash, fuckers, viruses sometimes break those, particularly the latter.

Once a virus is installed you can't trust the system anyways!

Tolya wrote:Can we perhaps make a sticky thread with antivirus info inside? It will save us another wave of "what to use" posts in the future.

Huh. There was one, damned if I know where it went though.

phongn wrote:

White Haven wrote:Also, I want to killfuckerize whoever at Microsoft thought it was a good idea to use Windows Installer and Windows Update for MSE. News flash, fuckers, viruses sometimes break those, particularly the latter.

Once a virus is installed you can't trust the system anyways!

Never trust that a virus has been removed if it was removed while the infected operating system was running.

Trust, but verify. I know painfully well how resistant to removal many viruses are.

MSE, Avira and Avast are all fairly good choices. Wouldn't go with anything else.

If you absolutely positively must also use something else in addition, Malwarebytes and Spywareblaster are good, non-intrusive things to use as passive backup.

Any advice on on-line virus checkers?

Dunno what you mean by that exactly, but there is one I use occasionally:

https://www.virustotal.com/

Korto wrote:Any advice on on-line virus checkers?

F-Secure has a good one. TrendMicro Housecall is also decent and I think BitDefender had something like that too.

I felt that Avast gives the most bang for the buck, so to speak, compared to other products at least when I downloaded it 2 years ago.

Dalton wrote:

Tolya wrote:Can we perhaps make a sticky thread with antivirus info inside? It will save us another wave of "what to use" posts in the future.

Huh. There was one, damned if I know where it went though.

I thought so too. I only posted after looking for it and coming up empty.

At any rate, I went with MSE. Norton's spamming my e-mail now, though. -_-