Best free Antivirus software

OK_Sauce

Recommendations seem to change all the time around here. Can anyone tell me the current best free antivirus software round here? I've heard AVG isn't that great anymore but Avira and Avast are pretty good. Is one better than the other? It's going on a fairly old XP laptop so I don't want it to hog the system too much.

TIA

kwikbreaks

Avira and Avast are much of a muchness imo. I've tried both but had to dump Avira as it gives a false positive on a program I've been using for years and need.

I found that Avast updates its database more frequently.

OK_Sauce

Thanks for that. It's currently running a version of Kaspersky I got free through Barclays but it has slowed the laptop down so much so that it's getting really frustrating using it.

fiddiwebb

I would go with Avira

No problem with false positives, better detection rate than Avast also noticed this week on the Techie Stuff board a couple of posters have had problems with rogue antivirus programmes being downloaded onto their laptops that Avast failed to stop or detect.