My 30 day trial of McAfee virus software is about to expire. Should I pay service for virus software or are there plenty of good free ones? Thx for any advice.

Since I'm using Windows 7, I usually stick with Microsoft Security Essentials, but otherwise, my favourite free antivirus that I've used is Avast, it just requires a free registration to use.

I use Microsoft Security Essentials and be concious surfing the internetz.

I use AVG Free and Malwarebytes.

i tend to use avast
and malwarebytes to pick up anything avast lets slip through ( or goes flippy about )

I also use MS Security Essentials. It's good enough and its footprint is small.

Malwarebytes, as someone also suggested, really should be on your PC, too. You can run the free version every month or two or three and catch things that nothing else will.

The safest practice, of course, is to stay away from the dark side of the Internets.

too late for that he is already on gog ;p

Those were false positives! I swear! :)

Avira, Avast, AVG, though AVG tends to eat a lot of RAM.

Avast is the lightest on the system.

Malwarebytes it's a good extra for security and for firewall, Comodo (only the firewall). Comodo is not exactly user friendly, but it's solid. The newer Zone Alarm are putting a lot of c..p in the system and on the browser, so i wouldn't recommend it right now.

There is never anything for free anywhere in life ;)

To be honest if you ask about anti-virus programs, then for everyone that is mentioned you'll probably get someone saying it's the best they have ever used, whilst someone else will say it's the worst piece of crap ever.

The general experience with anti-viruses seems to be that they work fine (often for years and years) until suddenly you start having problems. These may be caused by an update, changes in your software or hardware, or for no logical reason at all! Often the best thing to do if that happens is to just move onto another one.

I use the free edition of Avast on my main Windows 7 computer and I've been very happy with it - doesn't use much resources and I've never had a problem. I've also been happy with Avira on my Windows XP laptop.

One last word of advice - if you do change anti-virus programs make sure you completely remove any trace of the old one, or else the chances are you will run into problems (you will find a removal tool program for most anti-viruses on their websites).

Best of luck!

I guess what really matters is to have some sort of antivirus at all, and what exactly you choose is less important. However, according to this http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388652,00.asp Panda Free Antivirus is relatively good.

I must say lately I was reinstalling a Windows on one of machines at home, and as always I was going to install Avast. But... well, I don't like to let the installer install all the bits and pieces it comes with without looking what exactly is installed. So, when I selected custom install there were so many non-essential parts of the software that I had no idea what they were doing (protect this and that, monitor something else, anti something, blah blah blah - and nothing really had any description whatsoever) that I eventually just gave up on it. And Avast always seemed to be rather resource consuming.

From what I'm reading, it probably won't. Try googling on a PC that you don't care about (just looking for the info can get you infected with buggers) to see about removing it. When I pick those ones up, though, I always back-up and reformat. There's just no telling what else its sneaking onto your PC. One good bank account hack and you're sunk.

There's also <span class="bold">Avira Free Antivirus 2015</span>, which is very effective and light on system resources. Just avoid installing Avira SearchFree, as it's a disguised version of the "Ask toolbar" (an annoying spyware). The new version of Avast is a bloatware, and AVG uses too much resources for what it does.

If you're willing to pay for a commercial one, I highly suggest <span class="bold">ESET NOD32</span> (very light and effective, and lightning fast updates). Avoid Norton and McAfee at all cost, they're better for their marketing than their products...

To get a better idea of all the antiviruses, I highly suggest to take a look at <span class="bold">AV comparatives</span>. They test all the current antivirus solutions, including the free and the commercials ones, and also check for false positives.

MalwareBytes is one of the best free antimalwares. It can be installed even if an antivirus is present, but only if the resident protection is not installed (only available for the pro version).