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I suggest avast! Home Edition. Unlike AVG Free Edition, it has a firewall, it automatically checks your surfing & downloads and has on-access protection. I've never had any problems since I began usign it.

The Windows Firewall is more than enough for most computers. In addition to that, most DSL/Cable routers these days also have a NAT firewall in them (which does in hardware much more than software could ever do).

I've heard of most of these scanners. At first I was thinking of using AVG, but then AVG (and I believe NOD32 too, as I think they use the same servers) had the 'flaw' with the user32.dll removal, which was patched later I believe. I might give them a try. Comodo used to be a nice firewall, but now it spams messages whilst PC Tools Firewall locks up my computer when I try to debug an application (I had to turn the firewall off when I want to run an application ).

If you want a decent antivirus, use NOD32. Recommended. AVG Free edition is not worth the download, doesn't prevent viruses downloaded from exploits. In NOD32, everything on the site is scanned as soon you want to download it, not when it is already on the disk. (Smaller applications, harmful java scripts running in background, browser exploits like the WMF one). Of course, archives and zipped files are scanned as soon when you have downloaded them.

But once a more complicated trojan is in your system, I recommend downloading Spybot Search and Destroy, rebooting into Safe mode and let it check.

we coul make a little test on those ( i my self recommend AVG free)

but it requires one with "virus" experince , so we can test to see how they react to different virus ( i Know this has been done ....... times before, but still....)

KMT dk

Edit:
espacily on windows 7, that would be funny :

I work in computer repairs. When a computer comes in with virus problems, there's a standard procedure I go through.

1. Take the hard drive out of the computer, and plug it into my workstation, and run an offline scan of Bitdefender.
2. After putting the hard drive back in the computer, boot into UBCD4Win and run AntiVir over the drive.
3. Boot into Windows.
4. If they have Norton, uninstall it.
5. Install AVG, update, run.
6. Install Spybot S&D, update, run.
7. Install Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, update, run.

On a badly infected system, each scan from each program will pick up something new and different. No one anti-virus program will pick them all up. Bitdefender and Spybot usually pick up the most, but I hate having them installed because they both chew threw system resources.

I've had the best experience with NOD32 (and Eset Smart Security) and Avira. They're both not to hyperactive and they seem to offer a good protection overall, sadly they aren't free though so I have to uninstall them after 30 days and find another one (I'm too lazy to buy the product as I think it's lame that you have to buy a new license every year or so).

IMHO, Anti-virus software is one area where a large price is actually justified. The amount of work you have to do in order to keep anti-virus software up to date is huge. Reading, researching, writing virus definitions, pushing out those updates to all the users (think MMO-style bandwidth usage), and the costs would add up. So I reckon buying a new license every year is fair enough.

AVG even manages to make normal sound stutter when its running a virus scan here...
And Avira is nagware, probably even more annoying

Kaspersky! The russian anti-virus power
Serriously, if you got Win7 Beta, you got free Kaspersky(just click something like suggest an antivir in the Action Center, and click Kaspersky then).
Is very gon on XP and Vista whitout too much waste resources(works fine XP-512MB RAM and Vista-1024MB RAM and Windows 7-1024MB RAM).

Noscript plugin for Firefox, nut surfing every deep corner of the web for pr0n or make-money-fast, not opening mail attachments, reading your mail in text-only, not executing any binaries you got from "somewhere on the web" or "a friend".

That's more important than which anti-virus software you're using.

In the last 16 years, I've had two false-positives and one tentative positive (after which I reinstalled my last backup instead of trying some smartass cleansing software).

I haven't gotten a virus on this system, ever, because I only really go to a very short list of sites, and when I do go to another site or download a file it's always on recommendation from a trusted person (who I know has gotten the same file safely). As Solar pointed out, safe surfing will keep you safe more than a virus scanner ever can.

I just keep a firewall and virus scanner "just in case". Spyware is a bigger concern to me than viruses

"The best protection is keeping the network and/or phone cable [always] unplugged."

Rook wrote:"The best protection is keeping the network and/or phone cable [always] unplugged."

Naw, the best protection is encasing the tower in cement and burying it in a booby-trapped grave! But I can never convince users to do that for some reason...

How am I transmitting this you may ask? Simple, TCP/IP over bongo drums in a sound-proof room.