Lightweight Free Anti Virus Software?

Hello,

I was wondering if anybody knew of a good free lightweight antivirus program, as I just got an internet connection on my slower computer. The computer itself can hardly be called internet-ready, it's over 10 years old, but it still works fine, the problem is I'm worried that an antivirus program would slow it down too much. (I have Norton Antivirus and Firewall on my other computer, which is much faster, and it slows down the computer a lot, especially booting. I kinda want this computer to be usable online.) I know that there are some great programs out there but most of them seem to be too taxing on a computer's resources, and the ones that are fast seem to be really bad at detecting threats... anyway, I want to find something that is both fast and good, so that's why I'm asking.

Thanks a lot for your help!

This post has been edited by cangor: Apr 15 2008, 01:50 AM

Avast is very good, I've never had a problem with it and it seems to be very light weight and it has stopped every virus that has tried to knock on my computers door. If you google avast you go and download the home version, it's free and you just need to register it and you just need to register once a year, and like I said, it's completely free. Hope this is what you're looking for!

t3jem is correct you would want to go with avast as that is the smallest of the free anti-virus programs out there to use. I am shocked you got a computer that old and still running, have you tried upgrading the hardware such as ram, hard drive stuff like that? I bet if you replace the hardware one piece at a time you could gain your speed back. Also do you do defrag your computer, clean out the registry and stuff? Also I would install and run spybot and see if your old computer has picked up anything, and since that computer is pretty old I suspect that you running either Windows 98 or 2000 on that machine as well.

I don't think Avast advertises that it's a lightweight program. Out of many of them i've searched through back when i was using Windows XP, the only one that advertised that it was lightweight and after trying it out proved to be lightweight was Avira AntiVir. For the free version i was amazed that it had certain features that other antivirus companies would only give out if you purchase their program.

Okay, well thanks for the advice everyone!
As for the computer, it's running win 2k and is about as upgraded as it can handle (Pentium II 450 mhz, 384 MB Ram, 16MB video card, big HDD, etc), and it's well maintained, it's just not great for running a lot of modern software because since everyone nowadays has a super fast computer software makers have stopped caring about optimization, so everything junks up your computer. The computer itself has been running for 11 years I think with hardly an error which is pretty amazing, they just don't seem to make things as good these days.

If anyone need a fast and free anti-virus, I recommend AVG.

It is free and includes free updates.

You can download the software here: http://free.grisoft.com/

Reply to AVG
Lightweight Free Anti Virus Software?

Replying to peterspliid

AVG has been great for many years but the latest versions have not been as light so its a bit of a shame. Still a great product. Nod32 would get my vote

Well ive tried avg but it was a system hog and when i uninstalled it computer was much better...I then got avira which i liked very simple and easy. Automatically updates too! I also heard avast! home edition is good.

If nod32 was free, then that is very lightweight.

I don't think AVG wd be a good idea...i had it earlier...it was free and lightweight but my PC crashed frequently as it was
not very secure...I use Nod 32 now ...it is lightweight and works great...the only problem here is,it is not free....
you can try avast....

This post has been edited by klusk: Oct 9 2008, 06:05 AM

I'll say Kaspersky 2009 is quite light .. It takes up around 5-10 MB in memory. Dont know about the exact processor usage but It can adapt I guess. You can try the trial version and buy it. Its not free ..

Alternatively , You can go with a light weight firewall combined with Adaware + Spybot. And then Install AVG.
This can minimize the risk and guarantee a safe surfing