Anti-Virus Software

My F-Protect license expired recently and I'm looking for new anti-virus software for XP (free or at cost). Is there a particular anti-virus software that is generally regarded as the being best? I'm looking for one that performs well yet isn't resource hungry.

I've been tempted by BitDefender and the Kaspersky offerings. Any good?

AVG

AVG, without a doubt.

There's a free version called AVG Free that is available at no cost for personal use. Hidden away on the AVG website pretty well, but you can still find it if you do some digging. Probably easier to locate through www.majorgeeks.com

Direct link: http://majorgeeks.com/AVG_Free_Edition_d886.html

AVG - Free Edition

I've been using the free edition for a few years and can vouch for its popularity:

+ Does not hog the system or resources
+ Lightweight
+ Constantly updated
+ No apparent clashes with other software

Yet another vouch for AVG, used to have Norton on this PC when I first got it, my god that anti-virus is bloated to the point of no-return......

I've ran into a nice 'feature' of Norton Antivirus in the past -- my parents PC came with norton pre-installed. Worked OK-ish for some time, but they did switch to a real anti virus program after a while, and uninstalled norton. so far, so good... Except when they got an ethernet based router instead of a USB one at some point, and found that the PC could not get an IP address. Ever.

Turns out that the DHCP client service (which is necesary for the NIC to obtain an IP) could not be started. Norton had left itself as a dependency in the registry, even after the program has been uninstalled... Meaning the DHCP client service would automatically exit unless it saw Norton running on the computer.

Nice.

manually removed some remaining Norton registry bloat, and all was fine again. Why on earth would they leave crucial things like that behind?!

Indeed. I hate software which buggers up the system like that.

Sometimes there is just no way of getting away from Norton AV.
The thing came pre-installed on my PC and did not like being told to leave without trashing its room.

Reminds me of AOL when I had it on my older machine, though it's nothing short of a hassle when you have to format your HD just to ensure to yourself the dreaded thing is gone for good.
(software developers that create a copy of the installer in your windows folder that doesn't get deleted when you uninstall it should be shot)

No kidding... I forgot which version, but the first release of either AOL 4.0 or AOL 5.0 was an absolute disaster -- it would replace your TCP/IP subsyste, with some AOLerific version, that seriously hosed any 'normal' non-AOL ISP connection... and if you uninstalled it, on the next boot it would automagically 'repair' your 'damaged' system files and re-install itself. I worked in tech support at an ISP at the time. You wouldn't believe how many people got their system hosed that way.

uninstalling

I will post a vouch for the free edition of Antivir. I had boot up problems after installing AVG.

Thanks all. Looks like we have a clear winner...

I was using AVG till yesterday when I downloaded and tried NOD32 and guess what.. it found 5 trojans and one of them was loaded in memory.

AVG is good but I think NOD32 is the best try it here http://www.eset.com/home/home.htm

That's a little worrying. I'll take a look at NOD32 too I think.