No, I use it as well, but the key is common sense. If you supplement MSE with Elanarie's CS 14.1 PWE, you're good.

Maybe, but I'm not sure about common sense & you :p

I'm using AVG BUT I don't have any email. The only thing I use this OS for is games and hanging out with you folks. Point being I have 90% of the options turned off so it runs really smooth. My guess is if you had all the email and extras running it might get kind of slow.

I use Avira and indeed there are no more pop up ads to buy or upgrade their paid products.

Common sense is all well & good, but sometimes nasties slip through. Nasties that you really can't prepare yourself for. You might remember this thing, which caused quite a lot of problems back in 2011.

I'm currently using both Avast and Avira (on separate PC's) and I would be happy to recommend either of them. They both run without any fuss and don't use much memory.

Whatever you decide to use:

- Google to see if there are any common problems with using that antivirus with your particular operating system.

- If possible remember to create a restore point before making any changes

- Make sure you remove all traces of the old antivirus before you install the new one to avoid any conflicts. Most antivirus suppliers provide tools on their sites for total removal of their product (DON'T rely on simply uninstalling)

Beyond that, just install it and see how it performs. Best of luck.

I used to be a big supporter of Avira for years (mainly because some other free antivirus software, possibly AVG, required annual registration via email at least back then, which made it a no-no to install on less computer-savvy friends and relatives whose PCs needed to be as low-maintenance as possible). The pop up ads every now and then were small enough price to pay for it.

But then at some point Avira let a ransomware trojan (Security Sphere 2013) through without any warning, at which point I decided to find a replacement. Naturally I can't tell for sure if any other antivirus software would have caught it either, but still.

I used MSE until recently, but then MS saying themselves that people should maybe use 3rd party antivirus made me rethink about it. Also I wouldn't surprised if MS drops the support for MSE in older Windows versions (XP, Vista etc.) as fast it drops support for IE. So at least if you are using older Windows, maybe it is a better idea to use 3rd party antivirus software, just like use Firefox or Opera instead of IE.

Currently I am using Avast as it got good results in some tests, and it seems pretty nice.

By the way, Kaspersky has one additional, very useful antivirus tool too, Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10.

http://www.kaspersky.com/virus-scanner

It is a Linux based virus scanner on a bootable CD-R, for those cases if and when your Windows machine gets seriously infected (I originally used it with the Security Sphere 2013 case), or you just want to be extra sure. It makes sure that the Windows viruses can't try to meddle with the virus scanning, as you are running the virus scanning of your system from a booted Linux session. Maybe in theory some BIOS virus could affect it too, but I presume that is a small probability. It gets the latest virus databases during the Linux session from internet, just before the scanning (so you can keep using that same burned CD over and over again, no need to re-burn it every now and then).

It is a good idea to download that and burn in to a CD, and keep somewhere available. Just in case.

I'm pretty sure i read a report somewhere stating that Avira had the best detection rate among free AV. Anyway, Avira is the free AV i recommend. Avast comes in second from my experience.

I REALLY don't recommend AVG. I've had quite a few bad experiences with it and the detection rate wasn't that good. I caught a virus once that managed to slip through AVG unnoticed and forced me to format my partition (i couldn't even boot into Windows anymore, not even safe mode worked). In another incident i caught a trojan horse through a very famous website (the ads there got infected) and even though AVG did detect it, it failed to remove it. After that i installed Kaspersky and never ever had issues with malware anymore.

Been using Kaspersky PURE with Malwarebytes and SUPERAntiSpyware for the past few years, and haven't had a bad experiences with that combination...yet.

Regarding free Anti-Viruses...I'm not sure. I heard good things about Avira and Avast, but I haven't used them so I can't really say. Although I can comment on AVG (don't use it).

I'll bet they'll drop support for MSE for Windows XP on April 8, same day as Windows XP itself, and Windows Defender replaced it in Windows 8 (though that's likely mostly just a rename, similar to how Outlook Express became Live-branded as Windows Live Mail and bundled with Vista as Windows Mail).

Don't worry, I wasn't born yesterday :P

Most modern A/V, with more and more features added, can be resource hogs on older systems.

For instance, if you choose Avast and install all the Shields and leave everything on default settings, you'd noticed it interfering and "working" in the background almost constantly on an older system. But it is a very good A/V, probably the most complete feature wise among the free ones.

That's already been confirmed. Support for MSE and every other component (as they like to call their software additions to the operating systems) (exception is Office) that is used on XP will end when support for XP ends.

Were you born today?! Congratulations! :p

I'm also using MSE + common sense... It hasn't failed me yet.

Also, I use Spybot and CCleaner to remove other junk that MSE doesn't search for.

Thanks for the info folks. I used to be a huge booster of Avira, then got tired of its invasiveness. I will have to check it out again now and see if it has indeed scaled back on that. I need to replace my AVG & MSE setups with something soon.

EDIT: I also confess a fondness for Avira due to its red-and-white logo calling to mind the Umbrella Corporation. ;)