good free antivirus (or paid?)

[Thorin]

With the new computer, I need to find some antivirus to run on it.  Which free ones do you guys recommend?  Or which paid ones, even?

I've tried Avira, it has lots of pop-ups.  I've tried Panda, it seems to kill my upload speed.

[Mr. Analog]

I just use Microsoft Defender now

[Lazybones]

I just use Microsoft Defender now

Defener's performance has been questionable since it became more popular.

I am using Avira but it has nag screens that popup from time to time.

[Tom]

I used to use MS's antivirus, because for a while it was the best. But they didn't keep up with developments, and now its actually pretty bad.

Last time I did some research on it, (wasnt that long ago) I think antivir, avg, and avira were up near the top for free scanners. and the best paid scanners weren't much better (and some of the paid scanners were worse, like mcafee and norton).

[Melbosa]

AVG and Kaspersky for me

[Thorin]

I might just try AVG again.  Avira was on my machines for the longest time, but got really naggy.  Panda started out really naggy, although supposedly it got great results.  But then it wouldn't let me install TheRenamer - false positive.

[Darren Dirt]

I might just try AVG again.  Avira was on my machines for the longest time, but got really naggy.

I still use Avira, and agreed the nag popup for all the new products etc. is annoying, but doesn't cripple its functionality at all. I actually wrote a short .BAT that is scheduled to run every few hours to kill the particular process that makes it show up (for a while anyway -- hence the scheduling) -- otherwise weirdness: processor usage goes up if I am not at my laptop to close them, then again I have set up my laptop to never sleep even when screen is closed, so I can Remote DeskTop into it at any time).

taskkill /F /IM ipmgui.exe /T


But overall still seems to be pretty solid for protection, without a huge resource load. Other than the nagging