I don't use it either. Properly configured and with decent user habits, very few viruses can actually spread. Virus scanners kill your system performance and in general cause more problems then they solve (like AVG this week removing critical windows files and trashing systems).

Truer words were never spoken!!!

Ditto!  Based on personal experience and three recuts... (OK, yeah, I'm a little slow)

Again, ditto!  The one I've finally settled on and used for a while with no probs.  And this is the free version from my ISP progvider.

I still have Norton 'cause its well known.  There earlier version where notorious when it came to eating up resources and performance.  2008 version made significant improvements in adressing that problem.  I never had a problem with 2008 as far as performance is concern.  The key is to not only do you need to keep norton up to date but you also need to keep your Windows OS up to date with the latest security patch.  Base on my observation, norton seem to update the virus security around the windows security.  Just an observation.

I recently upgraded Norton 2009.  At first, it was working find.  But then, the endless message box keep poping up.  Everytime, it update itself, everytime it does a background scan, a message window kept poping up.  It has a silent mode feature, which, is completely useless since your could only leave it in silent mode for up to six hours.  Why only six hours?  I can't figure it out.  Personally if you going to have a silent mode feature, I think as the user I should have the right to keep silent permanently.  It called being user friendly.  I wonder what moron decided to limit to silent mode feature.  Those message windows were beginning to irritate me to the point where I just ended up having to disable the service alltogether. If you have 2008 version stick to it.  I've already filde a complaint regarding this problem.  I'll see how it goes.  Luckily there is plenty of AV software out there to choose from.

Just lock me up, I'll eat the key.

Lot's of good common sense advice in this thread. I'll put in one more plug for Kaspersky Internet Security Suite. I'm using version 7.0 but the 2009 version is out now and I assume it's similar. As has already been mentioned you can and should try before you buy. But the reason I prefer it is because it's a small compact package that has everthing accessible through a single system tray icon and has a very small memory footprint, only spawning two process to cover all security functions (Firewall, AV, Anti-Spam, Anti-Phishing).

Not entirely true. The free version of AVG is the same detection engine as the paid version of AVG. It's just that the paid version has more features for power users.

. . . and a zero day exploit will even catch people with antivirus software, so it's always important to have backups and layered protection.

I've been using AVG, but may have to switch for two reasons:

-Its false positive rate is amazingly high.  A file that looks like a virus one day is an "oops, that wasn't really a virus" the next update. In fact, it's so bad that a recent updated hosed systems by detecting Windows system files as viruses.

Luckily, I have it currently set to confirm with me instead of automatically "healing" stuff - because it has deleted files that were important to me.

-It also slows down my browser by an incredible amount whenever Web Shield is on. Pages constantly time out and I'm left waiting and reloading. AVG may be fast in some areas, but it's slow for internet surfing.

I'm currently considering Comodo's antivirus, since I use their software firewall.

I prefer something that's on my computer and can be scheduled to run on a regular basis and have an active resident scanner. A web scanner is unlikely to be able to detect viruses that may be actively hiding themselves and does not provide any preventative measures against viruses installing themselves.

On board virus scanners and other installed security software have a definitive advantage of being able to detect known viruses before they are executed, and take actions to prevent them from installing themselves in the first place. It's much better that a virus never enter your system in the first place than to find it later after it has already established itself.

The best way to prevent viruses is to make sure they can't be installed in the first place. Backups, firewalls, keeping systems patched, resident virus scanners, and safe computing practices are all ways to prevent them from getting installed in the first place.

I highly advise using layered protection for the best security. Yeah, they still need to work on making their stuff a bit more transparent and less intrusive - but none of these programs protect against everything, so it's much better to have several different types of protection.

IMO - The best FREE AV is Avast or AVG (though personally I prefer Avast, I have also used AVG effectively). While I have little experience with most paid AV programs, I have used Norton, which qualifies as malware. It is bloated, spreads it tentacles throughout the OS, is difficult to remove, and provides a significant performance hit.

I would not recommend going without AV software. You can always save CPU cycles by turning off the real-time protection and using the scanner periodically.

forgot to add, just being careful is good, like most posters above have stated, but i do like AVG, a couple false positives here and there just after installing, but thats it, so there is my 2 cents for AVG, enough so i bought it. AVG has a Link Scanner and Web Scanner, i had nothing but problems with these, so i turn them off, oh and i spend most of my time here on Stardock/Wincustomize (seeing i have no life LOL) and sports sites,

Currently running without any.

Ran for years with - various flavours - and never got a virus, never even trapped any before they got to me.

Most recent one I tried was AVG Free version, which was quite good but they started to nag a lot for me to upgrade to the paid version.

The fastest static scan I have found is the current version of nod32 - 2:15 for 500+GB.

I run a static scan every now and then using a random choice of on-line scanners or free trials - just to confirm I'm not being nuts, and I'm still not finding anything.

However, I am the sole user of my system and am a very, very careful user who knows what he is doing (at a professional level) and has zero interest in anything that could even be considered remotely likely to be dangerous to my PC's health.  If you can't honestly claim to be the same then you must resort to software solutions.

I recently installed the free version of Avira on a family members PC as I had heard good things about it.  It started popping up scare messages like "I am a hacker and could steall all your stuff! You need the full version of Avira to be properly protected".  That went in the bit bucket pronto.

I do run SpyBot Serarch & Destroy regularly and allow it to "Immunize" my system, but don't even bother with its resident protection.  It never finds anything either - except a few benign tracking cookies.

I also have a hardware firewall.

NOD32 used to be my recommendation hands down.  It's the one I've used to help friends, family, and corporations, who used Norton, Macafee, AVG, etc. until they got infected.   But the new Kaspersky has gotten rid of their bloated/slow operation and they've caught a few very esoteric trojans than NOD32 missed...for the first time ever.  And this is in the wild, not hypothetical tests.  So, I'm rating Kaspersky #1 now and NOD32 as #2.  NOD32 is currently what I own, btw.

Of free ones, I'm hearing AVAST has trumped AVG these days, but I don't know that from personal experience.

I've also heard the new Norton 2009 may have fixed the things that have causes all of us professionals to shun them for a decade now.  I will take a VERY wait and see.  If I hear they rock for years in a row, I'll consider testing them again, hehe.

If you have windows defender built in (XP/Vista) and either of these two commercial anti-virus packages, you won't need anything like Ad-Aware or Spybot on your systems.  That would be redundant with weaker protections and would slow your system down needlessly.

I hope that helps.

I'm in the ESET camp. Fast, thorough scanning and very frequent definition updates. I've got nearly a terabyte of storage and it completes a scan in about an hour and a half.

Again, I use iolo products.  Virus, Firewall, etc.  Been using since around 2004.  I've been hit once (recently) with a virus that was an operator error issue.  Good product imo.  Easy to use, not a system hog either.  I've got the full suite.  System Mechanic Professional 8.something now. Good product.