Best free antivirus?

Ive had norton ever since I bought my computer but when they came out with the new version, they decided not to support the old, and to top it off they went up on the subscription service.
I'm looking for something that offers free updates and script blocking.
BTW I'm running windows xp.

any suggestions?

AVG Free FTW, with Microsoft (formerly Giant) Antispyware for script blocking (and other handy alerts/blockers).

might not be an anti virus but it sure helps, zonealarm.com free firewall

I've found that my Windows XP box needs a reformat and reinstall every six months or so, so I get free updates anyway.

XP box needs a reformat and reinstall every six months

What the hell are you doing?

Let's see: on my old computer I never reinstalled 98. It ran fine for four years. On my current computer I've never reinstalled XP. It's run just fine for two years.

>>5
It's the XP half-life, surely you've heard of it.

I had an XP box that ran well for many years, but it required months of tweaking to get it into that state. Also not doing dumb stuff like running as root.

When I eventually reinstalled and realised how much work it would take to make it usable again, I gave up.

>>6
No, I haven't, and I've done very little to keep my machine in order.

It runs just fine. It's true I know where all the little knobs and buttons are hidden, but I almost never have to touch them. It took me about a day of exploring to beat XP into submission the first time, and since then I perhaps venture into services.msc or control panel once a month.

If you're not catching spyware and viruses, I really don't see why you'd be having a problem. I install and uninstall programs just like everyone else, but haven't had issues because of it.

What are people doing? Honest question!

What are people doing? Honest question!
If people are doing the same things as my wife, they're installing software sent via email claiming to give them a different colour star next to their ebay id or something.

>>8
Lol

i can backup the reinstall every 6 months thing. all i did when i had xp was:
install the drivers for everything
install firefox, azureus, GNUcleus, winamp, AVG full/spybot, etc(the basic stuff, plus some basic games like counterstrike, and GAIM)

6 months later, it crashes all the fucking time, theres no viruses/spyware, and its still using the same previously non crash causing drivers, no newhardware was added.. etc

reformat, reinstall, its stable again.

I've found in my experience that my Windows XP partition seems to go through a six-month cycle.  Suprisingly, the XP staff computers at school don't seem to need reinstalls at all, really.

Avg is good. Avast is good. there are a few others, Search G4/Tech TV they had an artical on it way back when. Just type Free Antivirus.

But the First and foremost step is to stop downloading absoulute FILTH on the computer, and to keep the non computer savvy off of it so they dont. I typically save filth for my other comp, once I run it through there and make sure its good then I port it over.

well I liked AVG but they don't have 64 bit version :()