Lightweight, free Virus Scanner

Mr_Grinch

Any suggestions? I'm running Avast at the moment, which is great but I'd prefer something a bit more "lightweight" on resources. This is an old pc. I have been running it without one, but now my girlfriend uses this machine I'd rather be careful.

Cheers folks.

Azio

as far as free ones go I don't think you can get much more lightweight than Avast. One trick is just have a minimal install, as in un-check the e-mail scanner and the IM scanner and the web page scanner when you install avast. Having said that I think this is much better than avast and it seems to be pretty light on the system requirements: http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

Darth Nathan

+1 for Microsoft Security Essentials. Surprisingly good stuff. Apparently it outperforms the latest free version of AVG as well as some aspects of Avast.

Although if you really want lightweight, and don't mind paying a little bit of money (around 20 USD) you can get NOD32, who still provide antivirus programs and support for frickin Win 95/98, with system requirements suitable for computers still running said OS's. Plus their main selling point is the fact that it's really light on system resources; in fact on my system now, with all it's fancy real time file scanning bells and whistles turned on, it's using up a tidy little 14 MB of RAM.

Dark Shroud

Darth Nathan wrote: »

+1 for Microsoft Security Essentials. Surprisingly good stuff. Apparently it outperforms the latest free version of AVG as well as some aspects of Avast.

+1

fragglefart

+1 Microsoft Security Essentils.

I asked this question a couple of months ago, and the majority directed me towards MSE.

I've found it to be exactly what i was after. Lightweight, nice interface, inobtrusive, easy to use and effective when required to actually do something.

Kriz

the really nice thing about MSE is that it does everything it needs to in the background, without any user interaction. updates, scheduled scans, all happening automatically with no annoying notifications or advertising nonsense.

autono-wally, erotibot300

also using MSE

wonderpug

I was a happy Avast user until that other thread where many recommended MSE. I switched and it seems even less intrusive than Avast was. Happy and sticking with MSE now.

MKR

I was planning to switch to MSE when it was released but forgot about it. This thread is the best.

Is AVG going to be angry about being uninstalled? I've never done it on AVG, and I remember how Norton liked to latch on.

wonderpug

I seem to remember AVG having a painless uninstall some time back. Avast is nice about it, too. Norton and McAfee are the bastards.

JoJoHoraHora

I had no problem uninstalling AVG when I switched to MSE.

citizen059

I've been using Avira after having good luck using their rescue CD on some people's computers. It has an annoying "buy me" popup for the full version but that can easily be shut down using a local security policy.

MKR

I like how MSE let me stop the post-install quick scan and switch to full without tossing the 2k items already scanned.