AVG Free Addition AntiVirus is a well know, quality anti-virus program which is light on computer resources and has some great features even though it’s free. AVG is fully automated – monitoring your system in real-time and catching threats before they infect your computer. The software will alert you when components need to be updated, so you’re always protected against the latest threats. Another great feature is the ability to schedule virus scans, so you’ll be sure that your system is scanned regularly. AVG also scans emails for viruses for those using an email client like Outlook.

The free version does give you full anti-virus protection, but you’ll have to use separate software for anti-spyware, anti-rootkit, anti-spam, and firewall. AVG does have a full PC protection suite in paid versions. Cnet gives the free version a rating of 6 out of 10 mainly because it doesn’t come with the additional protections. Believe it or not, someone actually made an almost 20 minute video for installing AVG.

Avast Home Edition by Alwil is not quite as well know, but it has the same type of features as AVG and provides quality protection against viruses. The GUI (Graphical User Interface) is simplistic and mainly provides buttons for performing functions. However, hovering over the buttons gives you a text description of what the button does. The interface could be better, but it only takes a little getting used to.

Free Avast installs quickly and provides real-time protection against viruses including email scanning, P2P, and instant messaging shields. Upon installation, you’ll have to reboot your computer and wait for Avast to perform a root level virus scan, looking for any threats that may try to load upon startup. Avast will perform a memory scan each time it’s started with the option to skip the scan.

Free Avast Home Edition auto updates all it’s components, so it is a set it and forget it type software program. The free edition includes functions that AVG does not including anti-spyware protection and anti-rootkit. In my opinion, this makes Avast the best free anti-virus software available. You can use this software for 60 days, but then you’ll have to register (free) and enter a product key. After that, no further steps are required.

Here’s a 10 min. video on how to install and run Avast Home Edition:

These are the only fully functional, quality anti-virus programs which are free that I know of. If you researched either program, you would find that they are both highly rated and recommended with many user stating that one or both would give you all the virus protection you need. I recommend Avast over AVG simply because it comes with the added protections against spyware and rootkits. Either way you go, you can rest assured that you have  very good anti-virus software.