What is the best free antivirus program?
 

I am looking for a good free antivirus program. Can you also give me reasons as to why you would recommend it over others?

Thanks.

I used to use AVG, but with their 8.0 update everything went to hell. Suddenly it was chewing through resources, flagging everything it shouldn't, and causing a major slowdown for startup time.

Avira is now my go-to program. It's small and for the most part it doesn't interfere with my normal operations. It does, however, do daily updates alongside a popup window asking you to buy the premium version. This alt-tabbed me out of a few games, and I was not happy.

At any rate, a google search will show you how you can get rid of the popups and/or make the virus definition updates run invisibly.

I've heard some people swear by Bitdefender, but I've never used that one myself, so I can't comment.

One website listed avast as the best free antivirus program. What do you think of it?

I also used to like AVG, then came the update and everything started to go slow.
Anyways, maybe you can take a look at Microsoft new free antivirus software.

Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE)
Microsoft Security Essentials Markets


I have not tried it so I cannot say if it's good or not. Just wanted to inform you.

Avast is good but I switched to Avira AntiVir. Smaller footprint and essentially as good in the comparatives.

(Of course, if you practice smart computing none of these will have a chance to do their job ;))

I prefer common sense. It's free and light. But quite uncommon, and hard to find.