I would recommend Nod32 or Kaspersky antivirus as they are two of the top dogs and not as bloated as mcafee or norton. I have used avg which isn't bad, but is more of a basic antivirus without advanced features. And from the online tests I have read the freebies seem to come up short of the top paid versions either in detection or features or both. My laptop I just purchaased not long ago came with norton preinstalled and I was not remotely impressed with it. Once I ditched it and installed nod32 the laptop was much more responsive. It came down to either kaspersky or nod32 for me and I chose nod32 for it's advanced heuristic detection and I figured I could use the kaspersky online scan whenever I wanted.

If we refer to "Consumer Reports" page 25, we will see this:
"As we were preparing this report, Microsoft released the first Live OneCare, a subscription-based service..........We weren't able to assess most of OneCare's components..."

Wasn't Windows OneCare Live available since the beta was released for public testing in November 2005, and final version became available sometime around May 31st? That gives us some idea of the time frame when the CR's testing was done.

One of the anti-virus programs that, in August, released a fix (before all others) for one of the ugliest rootkits out there was not even tested by CR. I've removed many paid AV's and installed free versions of AVG and Avast. There also was a time, about 6 months ago, when we would have to do that in order to clean a particular infection that only AVG could handle.

Bottom line is, if it meets your needs, keep it and use it. Paid versions are no better than free versions except for a few "bells and whistles". Life goes on, and, as is the case with books and articles dealing with technology, by the time the information is published, it can be outdated.

Avast or AVG I don't mind using because they are free and will provided enough protection. Mcafee, Norton and other mainstream companys charge for their software, but I'm not convinced that the protection is any better. My inspiron came with Mcafee sercurity suite pre-installed and I uninstalled quickly because it slowed the startup to a snails pace. Nod32 is suppose to be a decent AV, but its charged for and I've been luckly rarely experiencing a virus. Virus risk can be dramatically reduced with careful surfing and specially being careful with suspect emails or downloads.

I concur, FlyingArrow.