Best free antivirus software that won't slow my computer down?

[Goddess Enzeru]

Does anything like this exist? Can it get rid of trojans, addware, and spyware?
I'm running on xp
As long as the free version removed bad programs.
Avira said nothing of deleting viruses already there, just blocking more from entering the system.

[jibbarjabar]

For your anti-virus needs, I would strongly recommend Avira AntiVir® PersonalEdition Classic. It has excellent heuristics, a virus detection rate that is better than most "paid-for" anti-virus programs and is light on using your computer's resources. Uses less then 10 MB RAM on my machine. And did I mention that it's free for life! Works great on my Vista box, too.

Download here:
http://www.free-av.com/

BTW, Avoid the free version of an anti-virus called AVG, it has horrible virus detection capibilities.

Enjoy!

[Truelilaznkid]

Well, before i upgraded my laptop, all it had was 256 MB of memory, so an anti-virus program that didnt slow my computer was crucial.

I've tested many free anti-viruses to see

Avast: Slows you down alot especially with the memory i had..
McAfee: Also slow..
Norton: took an hour to update with the memory i had... dont bother

AVG Anti-Virus was the best in the "non-lag" It doesnt take up much memory to run, It updates on start up. So basically, after AVG has finished updating, you are good to go with no lag whatsoever. It detects alot. I had couple trojans rejected onto my computer because AVG has a real time scanner. Cnet's Download.com ranks this as number one Virus Scanner. infact, going to download.com, you will see it as Number 1 Most Popular program. Ranked 5/5 by Cnet and 4/5 by users. Free for life.
(tip) Usually when AVG finishes updating, all your startup programs are already done. So no resourses of Memory is being used to start up some programs

As for adware and spyware, anti-virus programs dont remove adware and spyware. You have to get another program. I recommend Ad-Aware 2007. It doesn't have Real Time scanner, so you will have to manuelly start the scanner. Usually, using this every Saturday will remove all the bad stuff and give you a fresh start to a new week. Download.com has it as number 2 popular software. Right under AVG Anti-Virus