Equally effective is the free Avast! scanner [2] though its funky media player style interface is not to everyone's taste. Avast! also required periodic re-registration while AVG does not. However Avast! does not seem to suffer the signature file update problems that plague some AVG users.
A possible third choice is the AOL Anti Virus Shield. This is a cut down version of the top rated Kaspersky AV and is being made available for free to all uses not just AOL members.
On first sight it seems like an unbeatable deal but it's not quite what it seems. First this really is a "lite" version. It lacks the important html and heuristics modules present in the full Kaspersky product so the protection afforded against hostile web sites is actually inferior to AVG and Avast!. Gone, too, is the ability to create rescue disks and to fully manage the quarantine area. The configuration options are also more limited.
Secondly the End User License Agreement is worrying. AOL basically reserves the right to spam you so think first before installing.
On the subject of installing AOL AVS automatically installs the AOL search bar in Internet Explorer as part of the AVS install. You are not giving the option at any stage of opting out though to be fair, you can afterwards un-install the search bar if you wish.
So on balance I'm cautious about recommending AOL AVS. If you can however, live with the limitations then you'll be rewarded with a first class scanner.
Both AVG and Avast! are excellent free products that will meet the needs of most users. However neither can be considered to be the best in their class. That title belongs to commercial products like NOD32, F-Secure, the full version of Kaspersky AV and others. They are however capable packages and offers the financially challenged a real alternative to the major anti-virus suites.
However if you use these free products in conjunction with a free on-demand scanner, you can achieve a level of detection approaching that of the best commercial products. Further improvement is possible by creating a layered defense using additional free security products such as Ewido.
On-demand scans should be run regularly, at least weekly, to check for viruses that may have been missed by your main scanner. My top recommendation as on on-demand scanner is AntiVir Personal Edition Classic [3]. It offers significantly better detection rates than either AVG or Avast! but the lack of email scanning precludes recommendation as a primary scanner. However as an on-demand scanner, it's first rate. If you use it in this role, make sure you disable its resident virus guard during installation to prevent it interfering with your main AV scanner. Note that the recently released V7 unfortunately introduces a time limited license though apparently this will be renewable.
Another good option for on-demand scanning is the free version of the commercial AV product BitDefender [4]. It's a first class product with outstanding detection rates but as the free version lacks an email scanner and a resident virus guard, it's only really suited for use as an on-demand scanner rather than your main AV product. There are some other limitations as well. First it has an annoying habit of detecting malware products that have been quarantined by other security products and you can't exclude these areas from subsequent scans. Second it is only available on a one year non-renewable license.
[1] http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/ (16.0MB)
[2] http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html (8.8MB)
[3] http://www.activevirusshield.com/antivirus/freeav/index.adp? (13.9MB)
[3] http://www.free-av.com (8.7MB)
[4] http://www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en--BitDefender-8-Free-Edition.html (13.2MB)
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