I hate AVG personally, but i havent yet figured out what I want to use for an Anti-virus program. I have Anti-vir right now, but I really love to the many different opinions that are given here on these forums. I just don't know what would be good. I had Avast for a little bit, it seemed pretty good, and I'm not quite sure why I didnt use it again. So what do people think is the best free anti-virus (please don't mention AVG)?

Hey, you seem to have quoted almost all the best and the free available anti-virus softwares. I dont know about Avast, I have'nt tried it out, but you must give a check to bit-defender. The free edition gives you just plain anti-virus but you might as well check out their pro edition which includes anti-spam, firewall...bla, bla.
Another good free anti-virus I can think off is Panda. I got this AV on a CD magazine which gave me 1 year promotion subscription. It has all the features to defend you and your computer. Its a truly install and forget AV. You dont even have to think about updating it, as it automaticaly updates as soon as you connect to the internet.

Just one more thing, if you are a genuine microsoft windows xp user (I am one) you get a 1 year subscription free from CA (I think so), just give it a check.

I have used Avast for years and I love it.

Automatic updates, automatic scans.

Has web shield, instant message shield, network shield, email shield, p2p shield, and of course the regular passive scanner going.

I've gone to web pages and while they are loading avast pops up a message saying it detected a virus was downloaded, and asks me to delete it and I do and i leave web page, do a scan on computer to make sure, no viruses, and everything is fine. And thats just the free home edition, i can't even imagine what kind of functionality the professional edition must have

Heck it even has a Virus Recovery Database that passivly backs up files, and if they ever become infected it has a back-up ready for you.

I love the software and highly recommend it.

I used AVG a few years back and I didn't like it either. I then found avast and have stayed with it since.

Avast! is for sure a explendid anti-virus program, but it isn't free is it? And what about that so-called Open-Source anti-virus, named "Clam Anti-Virus"?? It could be a key for better security, because it's open -source, then maybe it can grow stronger, and maybe one day it can finally get better than any Avast!, Norton (this one sure sucks), or AVG (Old-friend of mine ).

Here I am adding my voice to yours for Avast Anti-Virus. it's splendid,yet a friend of mine once told me that it had deleted some codes in the registration,

I mean in the system. what I like the most in Avast is : the automatic update, not to mention the attention sound :), furthermore, I used NOD32 anti-virus, it's great also and it's less in size

I've used Avast for a long time now and I'm very happy about it (if you configure it correctly, because it tends to stall Vista a lot ). It has a great on-access protection and they update the database very often.
I'm not a fan of AVG and Free-AV, basicaly because their user interface is below par , they are hard to use, BUT they do offer better protection over Avast.
Bitdefender (free version) and ClamAV are good back-ups, but aren't suited for main protection since they don't offer an on-access scanner.

Agreed with the others on AVAST. Currently using that and very satisfied with it. Anyway there's a lot of topics on Anti-virus and you might want to search the site of view here for more details on other views.

http://www.astahost.com/index.php?showtopi...46&hl=avast

I'm all about Clam AV (clamwin on windows) because it's free, GPL, and open source. Also, it doesn't dig any hooks into your system, so you don't need to worry about it hosing your system. The only downside (because of the aforementioned no-hooks policy) is that it doesn't have an on-demand scanner, but if you just scan things before you run them and periodically do system scans, you should be just fine. If you run clamwin from a USB key or a CD, you don't need to worry about your scanner being compromised too.

Anyway just to add on, AVAST provide a bios virus scan when starting your computer (before loading into Windows). I found it pretty useful for this kind of scanning as normally trojan or virus usually loading when windows startup. So it will be loaded in system and can't be removed. Just some information. Cheers

I just found out NOD32 is pretty good it includes anti-virus, anti-spy-ware and more plus it scans your computer very fast. It's barely slows down your computer unlike other anti-viruses. I used it for a while but then I bought AVG Internet Security and now I have That. Sorry for mentioning AVG