Free anti-vrus?

[MomentOfInertia]

Does anybody know where I can find a good ant-virus program for free or even a minimal version of a purchase-able program?

I just fixed my sister's laptop and I don't want it to break again for as long as possible.

Thanks.

[CrimsonRyu17]

AVG Antivirus is a pretty trusted and reliable program. I've personally used this on the family desktop since the original antivirus expired. I've yet to get viruses or the sort yet.

avast! is also another option. I hear a lot of praise about this one but I've yet to fully use it myself because it conflicted with my Trend Micro PC-cillin presently on my laptop. It's worth a try at least.

There are plenty of options but do be careful about searching around for free antivirus. There a many out there that look like they're legit but they're really just trojans.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Seconding AVG, I've found it works well.

[Okami]

I can second Avast! My best friend's family has been using it for as long as I can remember...

[Tsukuyomi]

AVG is pretty good, but a bit heavy (?) ^^ Avast is good too, but make sure it doesn't mess with your settings/firewall. I installed AVAST a long time ago, and it blocked the internet.. xD; Well, I could still get on YIM to ask friends about it, but it blocked the rest of the internet... We all wondered what was going on, and then someone suggested to uninstall it. I was a newb to everything, so it was like,"I-I did not think of that X_X" xD

You should get some Anti-Spy/Malewar programs too ^^ Spy Bot Search and Destroy is a good one and Malewar Bytes ^^

[Yahshua]

MSE http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/?mkt=en-us

[Shao Feng-Li]

I myself use avast!

[Nightshade X]

I use MSE

[Mr. Rogers]

All of these ones are pretty good. I like MSE because it seems to integrate well with windows and is easy to use.

[Furen]

Malware bytes (Best one I've ever come by)(Even beats payed ones)

[MomentOfInertia]

Thanks guys!

Next time I have it on wi-fi I'll try to get AVG and Malware bytes.

[Straylight]

AVG is good, it's worth having 2 on your computer though as pretty much all antivirus programs have holes in their databases so can't counter everything that's out there. I got hit with 2 viruses when I had AVG installed and running, both of which it couldn't pick up.

[Mithrandir]

AVG is good, it's worth having 2 on your computer though as pretty much all antivirus programs have holes in their databases so can't counter everything that's out there. I got hit with 2 viruses when I had AVG installed and running, both of which it couldn't pick up.

Can I caveat this? It's OK to have two AV progs on your machine, but you'll probably only want to have one running "in the background" instead of two. Background AV can REALLY tax the machine, and when two get running at the same time, it can seriously churn through your system resources (I've seen drives burned out because of thrashing issues).

There's nothing wrong with manually launching a 2nd prog once or twice a week (or even on boot, if you want), but I'd be hesitant to recommend running multiple copies in the background all the time.

YMMV!

[Straylight]

Can I caveat this? It's OK to have two AV progs on your machine, but you'll probably only want to have one running "in the background" instead of two. Background AV can REALLY tax the machine, and when two get running at the same time, it can seriously churn through your system resources (I've seen drives burned out because of thrashing issues).

There's nothing wrong with manually launching a 2nd prog once or twice a week (or even on boot, if you want), but I'd be hesitant to recommend running multiple copies in the background all the time.

YMMV!

Agreed totally about the research hogging. What I tend to do is have one running in the background, then do single pass scans using something like Malwarebytes every now and then, just like you've said