Artful Dodger: I normally install AVG Free Edition for people whos PC / LapTops i have fixed

MadMonkey: okay this might be a total coninsdence and i know that isnt spelt right..lol

but ever since i downloaded the http://free.avg.com/download-file-stb-afe this morning
firefox has frozen solid twice so far very annoying has ive got to reboot every time

i should add its only happening on firefox i can use google with 3 windows open and its fine

MadMonkey: I'm using McAffe but am thinking of getting rid of it for another.  I've heard good things about Avast and Avg. 

Artful Dodger:  The three free ones I'm considering

AVG

AVAST

AVIRA

Any thoughts on theses?

Artful Dodger: I haven't tried Avast. What I found annoying about Avira was the advertisement window that popped up on every update. I like my AVG, but I am only really happy with it since I have more than one CPU core.

Gordon Shumway:  I've been a happy avast! Home Edition user for many years.  Not sure why you get ads, though.  I never see any.  I do get notifications of updated versions of the software or definitions, but those don't seem at all obtrusive to me.

wetware:  Am currently using Avira.  I've read good reviews on it but have also read good reviews on Avast.  I am considering buying the pro version of the one I like the best. 

wetware: I never used Avast, the ads appeared in Avira :)

Gordon Shumway: Oops...I misread that.  Glad to hear that avast! was running ad-free.    :-)

Artful Dodger:
I have been using Avast and I like it. I did try AVG but it seemed to slow down my computer to much.

alexlee: For me too, but only during the update checking and updating, and only when I had a single core CPU, it felt like it stalled the whole system shortly after startup. But once that was done, everything was fine. Now that I have my new computer, I basically don't notice ever that AVG is running.