Recommendations for a free antivirus program for 2012?

[kleuck]

I use FB sometimes.
BTW, i changed my Firewall, get rid of a few "worms" and FF is still slow under XP, funny how it works well under Linux, considering Flash is not well supported (i experimented flash crashes with XP too, none under Nux)

[km6xz]

Another thumbs up for Avira, free version if you have to run Windows. I got tired of keeping 28 machines in my office all on the same page with Windows licensing since there are a mix of Russian and English versions which are not very compatible and have different hardware requirements. We were using the commercial version of Avira but due to the expense of upgrading all those machines and adding memory to most for Windows 7, switched all of them to Linux. Best decision regarding OS, simple, fast, stable and does all that the office needs to do. The server has been running Linux for 3 years without a minute of down time, after switching from MS Server 2003. Windows 7, particularly 64 bit does work pretty good, much better than Vista. i run it dual boot(actually quad boot plus VirtualBox) on my i7 17.3 inch laptop and have no problems with it. I need some sort of Windows for some specific software suites for programming and it is required by our bank for the automatic tax deposits.

FF has had some rough patches in recent years and has gotten bloated but I like it because of all the plug-ins available for development. But my main browser is Chrome, it is fast, small and just works. The simple minimalist user interface is nice.

If someone wants to try Linux, there are some great, polished and easy distros out now. The one I am using on most of the machines is Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. It is really easy and fast to install and it can set itself up for dual boot choices select-able on start up. If you are running older hardware, it will run much faster than Windows on old hardware, it finds and installs just about and drivers needed automatically, and installing any of the 100,000 or so free Open Software programs with a single button click.
If one just wants to try it without installing, you can load it onto a flash drive and run it fully from that. If you decide that you want to install it, just click on the boot option for installation or select installation while in a session. Another easy to use and install version is Linux Mint, which uses a different desktop and user interface(more Mac looking) but the same OS kernel (Debian ). Mac OS is essentially the same with a different user interface.

[Steve Conner]

Thanks for the info! I'm a long term Firefox fan but have decided to give Chrome a try. Running it right now.

Our internal webmail works best with IE, but I fixed that with the "IE Tab" add-on. Also, Adblock Plus recently became available as a Chrome add-on, so that's all good.

Have you tried running Visual Studio in an instance of Windows under Virtualbox? I'm considering that as an option at work. It would be very handy to have a virtual machine with all the development tools installed, capable of running on any computer. For instance, the only laptop I have left is a Mac.