Looking for great, free anti-virus

[Enders]

Avast seems to be broken, doesn't automatically protect my comptuer or update anymore, so I'm looking for a good, free, and effective anti-virus
I know about AVG and Adaware, but I was wondering if there were any other good ones, because these two have screwed me in not finding viruses in the past.

[Modest Genius]

well adaware isnt an AV program

ive used AVG for years, never let me down. just keep it updated.

[Milkman Dan]

Avast! went kind of crazy for me lately. I mean, the program still worked and all, but I was totally unable to update it without it crashing. Well, the Pro version did that. Home version worked fine. So, I uninstalled it until they update.

AVG isn't particularly good at catching viruses, but you can't expect much from free AV. I highly suggest you use NOD32. It might not be free, but it works damn well.

[Lord Kelvin]

I think that there's one called Panda scan or something, but it's online-only, and I'm not sure how good it is. I prefer kind that I have to pay for, like Norton, since then the ones who make it have an incentive to actually make it good. Problem is, you actually have to pay for it, but I'd prefer shelling out $20 a year for something I know will be supported.

[Milkman Dan]

I think that there's one called Panda scan or something, but it's online-only, and I'm not sure how good it is. I prefer kind that I have to pay for, like Norton, since then the ones who make it have an incentive to actually make it good. Problem is, you actually have to pay for it, but I'd prefer shelling out $20 a year for something I know will be supported.
Norton is a terrible AV program. It may find a load of them, but it's way too bulky and uses too much system resources.

[Lord Kelvin]

Mines is only using 3 MB of RAM, I don't consider that a hell of a lot. But I'm going to switch over to Macafee in a few days, since UIUC provides it for free and my Norton expires in ten days. I guess I'll be able to compare and see how good it really is.

[Discobird]

AVG isn't particularly good at catching viruses, but you can't expect much from free AV. I highly suggest you use NOD32. It might not be free, but it works damn well.
Seconded. NOD32 is light, fast, and as far as I can tell (http://www.eset.com/news/awards.htm) has never missed a virus.

I think that there's one called Panda scan or something, but it's online-only, and I'm not sure how good it is.
Panda Activescan (http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan.htm) and Housecall (http://housecall.trendmicro.com/) both don't require any installation, but of course you have to go online to use them, which may not be possible or desirable if you have a virus. I've used them before to help clean friends' computers but they never seemed to catch anything.

[Milkman Dan]

Mines is only using 3 MB of RAM, I don't consider that a hell of a lot. But I'm going to switch over to Macafee in a few days, since UIUC provides it for free and my Norton expires in ten days. I guess I'll be able to compare and see how good it really is.
You have really bad taste in AV. :(

[Lord Kelvin]

Hey, I wouldn't use the Macafee either, but it's better than nothing. Besides, I'll probably renew my Norton sometime in December, but it expires in November. I'll be sure to look up some better ones then.

[Modest Genius]

norton may not eat too much ram, but it does use up way too much cpu time. and as soon as you want to use any of the config screens or just run a full scan it bloats like anything

[iCeBaLLs]

Its all true Norton sucks your resources dry, stay well clear of it.

[Enders]

alright, I got the, I guess trial version of NOD32 from the site, but how can I download the full version? It keeps asking my for a username and password when I click on one of the download links

[Discobird]

You have to purchase it to get the full version.

[Captain Colon]

Panda Activescan (http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan.htm) and Housecall (http://housecall.trendmicro.com/) both don't require any installation, but of course you have to go online to use them, which may not be possible or desirable if you have a virus. I've used them before to help clean friends' computers but they never seemed to catch anything.
Also I tried to get pandascan to work when my friend got some nasty adware thing that we still haven't gotten rid of (it keeps trying to reproduce itself using rundll32 and he doesn't want to wait for a full system scan) and I kept getting "error on page" when trying to click the "local disk" button :p I tried out NOD32 since milkman dan seems to have good taste in software, and I like it a lot.

For my computer I still just do a panda scan every once in a while.

Not being a tard > Anti-Virus > Viruses