Best antivirus software for xp?

[Sigi]

Norton and Mcaffee are the worst in the bloat department
Depending on how many modules running, Avast! peaks at about 50MB (full services running) HOWEVER it's incredibly easy to pare down to about 15MB or less (like only running IM shield when using an IM, P2P shield when using P2P, etc)

Other people can fill you in on the other AV software

(BTW Free + Legal + Good = Happy me.)

[Kiro]

Avast Free Home Edition.

<3

[Bekisa.ramuh]

I've used Kaspersky for a while now and love it. Norton or McAfee work just as good but as already stated here they are a huge resource hog. They are mainly for someone who know very little about a computer and wants something completely automated and protected for them. You can make Kaspersky hog resources as well but only does it while running detailed scans. With a Core 2 Duo, I never even notice when normal scans or updates are running -- FFXI rarely ever drops under 29FPS even in dynamis while scans are running. With Norton IS2006 (I think), it would cause FFXI to drop down to 20FPS or lower in my mog house while running Live Update sometimes.

We use Symantec Corp edition at work and its very reliable as well. Version 10, I believe. Avast drove me nuts -- I tried it out before getting Kaspersky.

Whatever you get, don't download a torrent or pirated version of some AV software. Think about it -- someone hacked/modded the files to allow you to get it for free, who says they didn't "mod" something else? lol never know these days!

[Niya]

using avast myself, and happy with it.
norton is a no-go... we install it on the laptops of our customers cause its easy to use, but eats resources like hell and can sometimes manage to kill itself through a failed update... <.< (one customer complained that internet wasn't working anymore. took quite a while to realize that the firewall part of norton internet security blocked all traffic cause it got somehow damaged through a corrupted update. had to re-install to fix that)

if you want to go for a commercial scanner, NOD32 is the best. on several comparison tests i read it always had the best success rate.