Another good place to look for free security apps is Major Geeks. I have download programs based upon their reviews and have not run into any problems. A nice mix of free, shareware and paid or commercial software for you to look at. Here is a link. WWW Link

While you are there check out all the other software also. Really is a good source for what you may be looking for.   

Thanks Philly0381,I'll chack them out. Ever heard of filehippo? Another good place,but no reveiws.They have an free update checker that actually works.Blazing fast,about 3-4 seconds.Only lists 19 of my programs, but it's dead-on accurate..NET framework required.Worth a look.I've used it 2 1/2 months with no problems.  

I'm a NOD32 user here.

I would say that buying a good AV solution is probably the best investment you can make. Free is good as a temporary fix, but remember the free versions normally don't auto-update & run a few hours behind as well.

Avoid Norton like the plague if you actually care about using your PC for anything other than staring at an hour glass. The same goes for F-Secure. We've got the latter at work & boy do I wish we hadn't. I never thought I'd see a core2 hit 100% usage for 5 minutes when booting, but that's what F-Secure does for you.

For an alternative, try Kaspersky. I've seen some very favourable reviews recently; especially from gamers.

Another useful utility is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. It saved me from thinking I would have to wipe my install when I got the Virtumonde infection. Nothing else saw it until MAM had cleaned up a bit.

Filehippo is a great site & the free update checker is a nice feature.

The main thing to remember with any utils you download/buy, is that if they work for you, then stick with them. As you can tell, I detest Norton & F-Secure, but a guy in our IT recommends Norton to all his mates. Mind you, he plays games on an X-Box & uses his PC for e-mail only. :NOTSURE:

Been using that for a year or so myself. Pretty handy and never an issue.

FYI:My findings. AVG8.0 pins my cpu at 100% on startup for 8 minutes,then drops to 50-70% during it's 140 miute scan. 50,000k +ram. Active AV/antispyware kept it humming at 38-55% all the time.   Avast;20-30% on startup for 2minutes, 10-30% during it's 80 minute scan.11,000k.Active AV/AS......hello...tap,...tap,tap...Is this thing on? 00-4% if I stare at task man long enough to see it.This with 6 of 7 providers running(one's a boot scan) Plus it's skinnable! Btw,AMD64@2.4ghz,1.5gb ram 6 month old Compaq PC. Any guess what I'm using now?  

Running avast! on my notebook & AVG8 Free on my two desktops.

AVG8 Free seems to be as efficient & unobtrusive as 7.5 and it appears that email scanning is a permanent feature, rather than time-limited as some others have posted. No startup/CPU issues as related by Wizard1956; in fact both systems seem to boot a bit quicker since upgrading to AVG8.

avast! is also very unobtrusive, without any startup issues, and I'm pleased with it on my notebook.

At this point, it's a tossup between AVG8 Free & avast! from my experience so far.

Ditto!!!

I might have to try Avast, if AVG is going to stop scanning my email after a month.

Wizard1956 , Following another thread which I had started ..I decided to go with Webgizmo's recommendation , and try out the AUSLOGIC DEFRAG ...

~ it worked a dream and is really fast , complete with an online report at the end of defragging ....

I have 3 160 gig hd's and it did them all within 30 minutes ... give it a go !! ( best I've used in years !! )

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag

I've also heard that about the mail scanner. I don't know what the deal was w/v8.0, maybe a bad download.Avast is still far better imo,"invisible" updating(up to every 4 hours).better UI,more features and a smaller footprint. And yes, I would pay for this,if it wasn't free.I'm not the total freeloader that I'm made out to be.Bottom line,use what you're happy with,free or paid.

Yup, have to agree with that 100% Wizard1956.   

I was using AVG for years with no issues, but after upgrading to Ver 8 I had to get rid of it. Version 8 has several more processes running than the old version and a lot of crap I don't want or need in it.

I usually would turn my A/V off while playing resource intensive games, then I go into the task manager and end process the little updater and scheduler services. Now besides having more than just those services running, if you don't end then in the right order they just keep popping back on. Anything that does that crap to me on my computer has to go.

By recommendation from a friend I'm trying out the trial version of Kaspersky and I am happy with it so far. Only two processes running and a small Ram footprint and it already caught a Trojan . I'll probably be buying this one when the trial is up.

If you don't use anti-virus software, what do you use to check that you don't have any viruses?

Left AVG Free behind a long time ago. Have been using the free version of Avira's Antivir for a while and it's been great so far.

Use this:

http://www.elitekiller.com/files/disable_antivir_nag.htm

to disable the splash screen and popups during update.

Been using it for 2 months now. Beats Windows defrag...by a long shot.  

Has anyone ever heard of the EAV Antivirus Suite? I dl'd it, but haven't installed it yet.

You can see it here:http://www.download.com/EAV-Antivirus-Suite-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10358025.html?tag=pub&cdlPid=10829904
Thanks,
werewolf

hmm why can't I edit that??

anywhoo... better link: WWW Link

It ahdn't forced me to update yet so I just updated a couple of hours ago to AVG 8.0 and don't see any problems with it so far. Get a better idea after the initial scan I guess.

Oh and it didn't say anything about the email scanner being only 30 days.

I got a notice on my Win XP Home w/ sp3 but not on my win xp pro w/ sp3.
It still receives updates and is running AVG Free 7.5.524 my other computer
has AVG Free 8.0.100. That's too bad about the free e-mail scanning going
away after 30 days, but I agree with the above posters (I want my money back!)
I just don't understand why one would shut me off and say no way and the other
computer would keep going without a mention of it and continue getting updates.
Has anyone else had this problem? Does this make any sense? paj692

I've since read on c|net that the mail scanner function does NOT stop after 30 days.Perhaps an AVG 8.0 user can confirm that.I use Avast now,but if AVG works for you,there's no need to change.

Been using AVG 8.0 since it went public, mail scanner still shows active.   

Let you know in about a week if the email scanner 'expires' @ 30 days - there's certainly nothing in the install routine or program setup that tells you it will quit working at some point. I wonder if there was a beta out there that had an expiration date for email scanning & if that was the source of the original, apparently inaccurate, information about the email scanner in the free version.

I have the paid version of AVG 7.5 (2 year, 2 licenses) but it hasn't prompted me to update to 8 or anything. I wonder if I'm not eligible or something? I think I got it around Jan 2007.

We have the purchased version of AVG 7.5 at work & so far no prompt/offer to upgrade to 8 there, either. It's an annual subscription, though, so I'd think you'd be eligible for the upgrade at any time, assuming you have a current license. I plan to check on that at work this coming week.