Suggest Free and Lightweight antivirus

[M@crosoft]

Oh....so many replies. I am humbled.
But one question, is there any chance of that microsoft tool detecting the genuineness of my windows installation ?? You know why i am asking right ?? :ashamed:

no it can not:hap5:

go for NOD 32 2.7 version...damn light
i use it on my celeron 1.2ghz+ 56 mb ram:ashamed:

cheers

 

[salluks]

^its not free!

 

[Tanuj]

Oh....so many replies. I am humbled.
But one question, is there any chance of that microsoft tool detecting the genuineness of my windows installation ?? You know why i am asking right ?? :ashamed:

It will be installed even if you activated windows by * ahem * way. :bleh:

 

[hotshot05]

Avira is not lighter than Avast, takes a lot of updates but has better detection than Avast. I've been using avast without problems, tried Avira which slightly slowed down my PC, diff might be greater in a laptop. Both are freewares (home editions) U try both, use what u feel... after all good browsing habits is key to remain virus free not the AV!

The update system for Avira has been changed very recently(October or November 2009). Now lots of files but very small in size are being pushed to the software.
Just now, my AVira AV got updated and the file size was only 39KB.
When lots of files get updated, the update size is around 700-900KB

Avast slows down PC and consumes more RAM when compared to Avira(I measure RAM use using SmartRAM component of IOBit Advanced SystemCare v3)

MSE has been know to slow down systems, check the reviews.
Avira is lighter, bcos it does not scall all files, check with default settings and you will see what I mean

I have checked the option to scan all types of files(all extensions) and yet Avira scans faster than Avast(Strange decision by Avira to scan only known file types in default settings).

Oh....so many replies. I am humbled.
But one question, is there any chance of that microsoft tool detecting the genuineness of my windows installation ?? You know why i am asking right ?? :ashamed:

I am not sure if it really checks for genuineness but when I tried to install MSE, one screen said that "Now MSE will check if your Windows is Genuine or not". I clicked on "Next" and after some time it said that Setup will continue as your Windows is Genuine. (This is on a new XP which was already pre-activated and patched with SP3 in the ISO)

I have 256MB RAM and among Avira, MSE and Avast, Avira consumes the least RAM and has great detection capability(In Avira, SmartRAM shows 66MB free on startup and after the system has stabilised, around 125-130MB free. In MSE, on startup, it says 40-50MB free and even after the system has stablised, only 60-70MB free).