Vista machine.
Microsoft Security Essentials stopped supporting Vista a week or two back, so I need a new security suite. Hopefully other programs aren’t stopping Vista support…
Free preferably, will spring if it is worthwhile and cheap. DON’T want bloatware or one of the ones which used to be good and has become worthless and/or highly intrusive (e.g. McAfee).
AVG and Avast are both good.
According to unofficial banter between some CIA hackers that was recently leaked, Bitdefender is among the most difficult to defeat.
AVG (owned by Avast) was considered “totally sweet” from the perspective of a hacker hoping to compromise it.
I also use AVG on Windows machines. It’s free. I haven’t used a Windows machine at home for a couple years, but when I did I remember thinking it was pretty unobtrusive.
I have used Avira for years and have been happy. Had a virus several years ago and AVG could not remove it fully but Avira did (with help from Malwarebytes) so I switched and used it ever since.
I use Bitdefender Free at home. It’s very lightweight and it doesn’t bug you to upgrade to the paid version; it just sits there out of the way and does its thing.
AVG is fine for pedestrian use. I’ve been using it for a decade or more, and have not had a single threat get through it. I run MalwareBytes once a month or so, just to make sure AVG didn’t miss anything, and it’s always clean.
AVG went through a burst of nagware last year, but it’s OK now. I don’t find AVG very user-friendly nowadays, but as long as you just let it run, it’ll give you all the home surfing protection you need.