I'm very happy with what I am using on my Win7 rig (ASC Pro with AV 2013) and IIRC, it is based on BitDefender. I'm still hunting for a small footprint, install and forget about it AV for the old XP box. I won't list all those that I have tried and didn't like on it but I'm going to give this one a try. Thanks Doc.

You're very welcome, Wiz. When I saw it I thought of your laptop... and I'm really glad you saw this post. Please let us know how it works out.

Been using their Internet security for years and love it. I'm sure there are other people using others they love so it's really about choice. Just can't believe after all these years they have supplied a free version of their anti-virus program. Maybe they are hoping to get people to upgrade to one of their other packages that do it all. Eather way it's a win for people looking for a free anti-virus program.

It's always good to have a choice of free software

Be interesting to see how it works versus MSE. Just recently MSE snagged a host of Trojans, each listed as critical, that found their way onto my laptop through an open door I didn't know about. I then slammed it shut. Here's what I think happened. I used to have Secunia's PSI installed. I unistalled it because most of the software I have either tells me updates are available or I get them through emails telling me the same. For whatever reason Windows was telling me that PSI was slowing down startup. Sure enough I found a bit of it that was left over. It was when I got rid of it that MSE popped up and showed me the list of Trojans it caught. I think I don't like Secunia any more.

Perhaps the Secunia leftovers might have been misidentified by MSE as trojans... because they might have been used by Secunia to inspect the software on your computer and compare it to 'available' updates.

I doubt Secunia had any trojans in it, Uvah. It's highly reputed software (even though it tends to throw 'false positives' on software/drivers which aren't outdated).

Maybe you should salvage the files from your recycle bin and refer them to Secunia with a request for an explanation of why they rang MSE's bells?

Would if I could but MSE first quaratined them then deleted them when I said clean it up. Normally I would have thought that but when it named the Trojans I decided not to take the chance. Might be these nasties were piggy backed on a file or something which caused them to hang out rather than follow PSI out the door. At any rate Secunia was uninstalled about three weeks ago. I only found the left over after getting tired of the little white flag popping up on the task bar. So....I installed Bitdefender to see if it will play nice with the ones I have. If it does and causes no conflicts then its a plus for others who have them too.

Main point is it's a free trial....for one year, after which I expect you'll need to purchase.

I used Bitdefender throughout all my XP days....until Windows 7.  They were just a little too slow to catch up with 7 so I dumped almost a year of sub and moved to Kaspersky...

It doesn't say anywhere it's limited to just one year... it's free.

"Help your friends stay clean too! Tell them of our unique software, available free of charge!"

They do have a list of trialware (30 day flavor) HERE but this offer does appear to be 100% free. Like Avast, it may require yearly reactivation but I can live with that.

Moi aussi.

Update: I just installed the free version. It immediately detected my Malwarebytes installation and wanted to remove it. Fine, I said, I'll redownload and install it after the AV install.

The program is in 30 day trial mode until you either register it with a FB or Twitter account, or create a BitDefender account, also fine, Avast also has this requirement. Using about 20MBs of RAM, no cpu in TM at idle. Let's see how it runs.....

I see no way to initiate a full system scan beyond the initial one on install which I declined. The on demand scan of a file (its own installer that I downloaded) used 30-90% cpu on a Sempron 3100+/1.5 GBs RAM and is extremely slow. Well over 10 minutes on a 160kb file size.

Results of this scan:

An On Demand scan has completed.
The scan took: 00:10:47
Files scanned: 13426
Infected items detected: 1
Files known to be clean: 0

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\Downloads\Antivirus_Free_Edition.exe

Which is, as I stated, its own installer!!!

The settings dashboard is web based and the options I tried all gave a message of:  This service is undergoing maintenance. Please check back again later.

 I haven't rebooted yet as it did not prompt for one after the install, and nothing was added to the list of startup programs.

Malwarebytes did install properly afterwards.

I'll give it a few days to see how it works out, but I am underwhelmed at the moment.

Now that is hilarious!!!! 

Wiz... it'll do its scans and protection (see the screenie in the OP) in the background. There's nothing to configure. Go to the link I gave and go through all the pages... to the right of "Unbreachable".

By default, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition scans and cleans your system using only the resources that you, your software or your operating system are not using, thus achieving near-zero impact on your activities.

Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition periodically scans all of your files and handles all security-related decisions. This means you'll see no pop-ups, no alerts and you won't have to configure any settings whatsoever.

Actually, it's probably programmed to do that. It saves disk space, and if you choose to uninstall the program, you'll have to download the latest installer with the latest definitions. 

After closing the program and restarting it, it is now doing a full scan. 10-15% CPU/50MBs RAM in use, rather light, a good thing on this ancient rig.

The My BitDefender link from within the GUI takes you to a secure webpage with other options and functions but as I said, I get This service is undergoing maintenance. Please check back again later. Possibly options that aren't available yet or not available to free users.