I need a good, free antivirus
 

Someone told me the name of one, but naturally I've forgotten it.

Not free, but NOD32 is affordable and fantastic.

AVG?

BTD told me about AVG Free. I've used it. It's good.

AVG, that's the one someone suggested, thanks!

AVG Free is the way to go.

They changed their install screens though, so make sure you are careful and select the free one and not the "free trial" one.

I did that :) Like an idiot, I installed their toolbar, and I unchecked the thing about having a Yahoo search bar in it... guess what showed up anyway? But no matter, I disabled the entire toolbar after all... too many already.

So the next question is, what did your slutty little computer pick up this time? :p

After an hour and 24 minutes of scanning.... so far nothing.

Which is odd, since I've been reasonably sure that my computer's had a virus for weeks.

Make sure you unhide all your files and folders

Then go download and run MalwareBytes (it's free)

THEN rerun your AV scan.

I go with Avast! - I put it on every Windows machine I build.

MalwareBytes found two minor objects, now off to run the re-scan on AVG!

I concur with CoasterMatt; Avast is the one I use on all my Windows machines. It is free but you have to re-register once a year. I find AVG bogs down the machine when scanning, and I believe they have taken away some functionality from the free version.

Go bareback like I do.

I think it was Alex. He goes bareback.....

I use Ad-Aware by Lavasoft for the spyware, and AVG Free for the virus programs. This has worked fine for me for years. The AVG does bog things down quite a bit, but I run it every day at 1 pm when I am least likely to use it (I shut it down at night). If I am on it at that time I just pause the scans.

But I just might give Avast a try.

Just to add further concurrence, I also use Avast, and it's been great, and it installs it's updates with a minimum of disruption to the system.

I too use Avast. It's very efficient, it's very good at catching viruses, and best of all, it's very free. For spyware, I use a combination of Ad-Aware and Spybot.

I also use CCleaner to fix/remove broken registries and clean up space used by unused files. You'd be surprised at how much space all that stuff takes up.

Can you have Avast and AVG simultaneously? Or do they not play nice together?

Most anti-virus programs insist that you only have one loaded on the computer at a time. I'm not sure if there is a way around this, or if it would be of any use.

At present, I have both going. I suppose time will tell if they play nice.