Windows 7 - Which antivirus is best for win7

I was referencing the paid suite and the AVG8 builds from late last year. For me it was the uncharacteristic long shutdowns. I'm sure they've corrected them by now but for the longest MSN wouldn't work with Web Shield/IM protection enabled and their firewall would never get the security zones right always prompting me with slightest change.

Then it got to the point where I finally unchecked everything during installation except their A/V resident protection and some other stuff which was akin to the free edition or reverting back to previous 7.5 version. I took the opportunity to check out other offerings and stuck with avast.

I've been running Kaspersky 2009 Internet Security without any problems on Windows 7 and have it on Vista too. It seems to do well in reviews and shopping around I found I could buy it for 17GBP which is about half the price of the average game (Like Left4Dead which is awesome!) but the BEST bit is that that was for a 3 PC licence.

What I personally like about Kaspersky is that it updates it's definitions every 2 hours, but actually rating antivirus programs is a very difficult thing. If they do their job, the best you can hope for is that you don't ever notice them and nothing ever happens..... it's hard to say what's the best at making nothing happen.

As mentioned by Nighthawk, most of them offer trials, go and have a play and see which one you like the most. Just don't download any trials from dodgy sites like www.hackintomypcandwreckit.com (I just made that up.)

Yes i have always been a big nod32 fan.

Been using the beta for a while now, you can get rid of the evaluation period by using a normal nod32av account user and pass

Works fine in 7.

I use AVG free.
Dunno if it is the best.
I works for me, so for me it is the best.
It's free and it works.

The important thing to look at despite which one you go with is how it runs on your own system. If you start seeing problems then you move on to the next. The second person in line goes to run the same software and no issues are seen.

This is why the suggestion to look over the shareware/trial versions along with the free editions usually helps since each system will see a different software environment as well as hardware differences. When first seeing AVG on and running the first scan 7 locked solid. Since then it quietly sits in the background unless sounding an alert for something.

If either AVG or Avast were to start seeing problems then another program would be needed. The same could be applied to any other program through the hit or miss process of elimination. If it runs well after any initial ut ohs "hit"! run it! But if it trashes again and again it's a "miss"(see ya later!) and you dump it.

AVG free for me. Never noticed it running compared to nortan or any others... doesn't bog down the system, very little popups unless there is a problem.

Fast response to infected files.

The AVG free editions have been used here for a long time at this point. Even some of the older builds would catch a trojan or spyware on occasion while the IT pros advice of seeing multiple layers of protection outweighs any one particular program no matter how good you find it.

The one common question persistently asked is which is the absolute best while the facts show that each one has it's own capabilities while none are 100% fool proof. As for Norton by Symantecs many utter about the bloat seen with the software there.

Kaspersky Windows 7

Free and the best, its made for windows 7, just press register online and it gives you a beta key, free

That's a beta product so it's at your own risk.

it works, the only bug that i have found on it is it will say its not up to date when it really is, but thats happened to me only once. a simple re boot fixed that