What Antivirus Program Uses The Least Resources?

Avg free is at cnet.com avast is also available there and doesn't require you to download updates manually. I like avast better. Norton and mcaffee have both failed me and so has bit defender.

Here is what i suggest. For free, look no further than avg. Caught everything so far and havent had problems yet. But if you insist on forking over cash i suggest computer ascociate's ez trust security. I had it with verizon yahoo security at one point and it worked beautifully. Caught everything ran great on my small 600 mhz computer with 512 RAM and caught everything that attempted a infection as well.

As I'm in the midst of a thread related to problems which manifest themselves when scanning with AVG, can I say that apart from that AVG has to be the winner. And the problems I am having are more related to the amount of junk I hav accumulated than with AVG itself. "You got it, I'll scan it"

• When I first installed it it found stuff that had been missed by Norton

• It's Free

• Except when it's scanning the system, it does not degrade performance, unlike Norton

• It's Free

• You don't find that after one year the version you are using is no longer supported, so you have to fork out more cash - because -

• It's free

Am I developing a theme here? I really do hate paying good money for software that does things I don't realy want it to do, gobbles up memory on my pc and slows it down, provides me with a user help site which is virtually impossible to understand and [oh - did I mention] charges $£$£$$££$£ for the privelege

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My only problem with AVG is: Look at the security forum. Most people requesting help to remove spyware and virus' are using AVG or NOrtON. AVG, after trial runs out does not provide realtime protection. I like the idea of not getting it as opposed to needing it removed.

I'd recommend Avast. It's a commercial anti-virus software company that offers its product free to home users. I used to use McAfee, but it sucked up all my resources and had too much hidden stuff going on in the background.... not to mention the annual cost! Avast updates itself every day and I believe it to be a much better product. It snagged a few things that had slipped right past McAfee. Avast is clean, straight forward, and does the job without interfering with your system resources.

XPSP2 said:

My only problem with AVG is: Look at the security forum. Most people requesting help to remove spyware and virus' are using AVG or NOrtON. AVG, after trial runs out does not provide realtime protection. I like the idea of not getting it as opposed to needing it removed.

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I've been using AVG for 18 months and it hasn't "run out" (unlike Norton)
But it doesn't claim to prevent spyware (nasty little cookies that report back to their masters on everything you do).
Try Adaware, or SpyBot, or both. Between them they catch most of the nasties unless you are really into swimming in the nude. They will tell you who is watching you, and remove their little agents, and you can then use your internet security options to keep them out

The only thing i found with avg and probably the reason everyone gets infected all the time is this: if you open the control center then open the resident shield's properties you will find a setting with two options: scan all files and scan infectable files. Well, by default it is on scan infectable files. Just swap that over to scan all files and resident shield scans everything then i turn on all the other availible options. Save settings and close the control center. That will patch up any holes with the scanning in avg. You also can get cookies and stuff with it but you need pro for those features to be enabled.

I'm using avast and atm all the modules combined are using just under 8mb RAM.

AVG does has a faster on demand scanner, so you could always install that as well and disable it realtime scanning (2 AVs with realtime scanning running will conflict) .

What's the general opinion of Zone Alarm?
Installed it and have experienced problems, but as yet have not confirmed that the two things are related. There was a time lag

Zone Alarm AV? I am not too sure.

I know zone alarm has a whole security suite. I have never used it before except for the free firewall, but i know zone labs is a excellent firewall but a little big on recource hogging and if your a gamer you dont want it because it can lag up games like World of Warcraft. I think that zone alarm has good software but when it comes to size, its a bit bloated. I would like to find a smaller firewall actually. Anyone have any suggestions?