I need a FREE program for an antivirus.

[Sue]

My best computer is acting a little strange. Does anyone know of a good antivirus program?

[Stinkerbell]

My best computer is acting a little strange. Does anyone know of a good antivirus program?

A lot of people use AVG.

[snap20]

The first line of virus protection is the user themselves by not clicking on things that shouldn't be clicked on (or opened through email).

For free...it honestly doesn't get better than MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials). It's lightweight, free, and does the same thing as any other without all the unneeded bells and whistles. Most of the others give you a false sense of security because of all those add-ons. There is no antivirus (free or pay) that protects you completely. If you want to take the time to learn more about how you can effectively protect yourself, check out this guy's page: http://www.mechbgon.com/build/security2.html (probably skip the first section about Secure Boot).

If your computer is acting weird, the first thing I'd do is look for any new programs installed that I didn't install myself or recognize.

Then scan with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (free edition). 9 out of 10 times it's a malware program causing the problem. https://www.malwarebytes.org/

[disneyland lady]

I agree with Snap about MS Essentials and a follow up with Malwarebytes. I also do a weekly afterwards with ccleaner. I don't like AVG because it just takes up too much room on a smaller computer and there is a point where some "risk" really are not and they do not seem to update this part too often.

Because I used to share my computer with my grandson who was visiting sites I really did not want him visiting, I got into the habit of running them once a week - on Tues - after Pogo Maint and before the weeklies. I run the defraggler once a month. I do this on both my laptop and PC.

[essybee]

I agree AVG is a resource hog I like MSE and really feel it does all I need
Good luck

[Stinkerbell]

I agree AVG is a resource hog I like MSE and really feel it does all I need
Good luck

Good to know. I've never used it, myself, but it's been recommended often here.

[Yoming 2]

I use Avast..................seems to be o.k. and it works.  It was recommended to me by a computer tech about 4 years ago. 

[KrAzY]

I would recommend MSE also it is very light and doesn't bog down your pc like the other ones do and does a good job, BUT if your still on xp this isn't a option as microsoft was so kind as to remove support for it and disabled anyone running it on xp a while back so if your still running xp i'd recommend  Avast.

AVG is overrated and sure it is free but it is terrible in my opinion for several reasons 1 being it is a resource hog with all it's  unnecessary bells and whistles and 2 being it thinks everything is a virus or trojan lol from a developers stand point such as myself this can be quite frustrating when anything you compile into a exe or dll ect avg seems to flag as a trojan and delete haha i just can't stand it's huge false positive problem. For every 1 legitimate virus it finds it flags 10 that are not and it just gives people a false sense of insecurity and thinking everything is infected when majority of what it flags aren't.

[Squid]

I have used AVAST in the past, AVG and MSE.  I am currently using MSE on one and AVG on another.  Both are good... maybe MSE is less hoggish.  I use Spybot and CCcleaner.  I think you can't go wrong with any of them, including MalwareBytes, it depends on you, your system, settings, etc.  Good luck!

[snap20]

Avast is one that is named often and is a good option, as Yoming mentioned. I'd recommend Avast over AVG.

I used to use Avira...but that program has gone down hill quite consistently. I went from that to MSE.