Do Free Antivirus work as well as Paid?

Yes, I pretty much believe that most anti-viruses are pretty much the same thing, they will detect all of the small things, but no anti-virus is perfect, they all have their false positives, flaws, etc..

The big things on the other hand..most anti-viruses will not detect them like TDL3, PRAGMA, TDSS, and other rootkits and backdoors..

Pretty much when you download a bad file it is like letting a robber in your house and locking the door behind you, which means you are stuck with the robber until you remove him by calling the police.

Free anti-viruses are often good enough. I've used Avira and AVG, and I never got a virus. AVG did get a lot of false positives, though.

i use avast. It free and it seems like it works for me.

I have Avast. It is free, and i like it. It works fine.

I think Avast is the Best FREE antivirus, But everone has there own Idea on what is better,

Some of them I like microsoft security essentials

If you are really concerned about your computer's safety, a great way to protect your computer is to use better practices. For example, don't download torrents (if you must find a good site, with a big community, and only download really popular files (the more popular, the more people will say it is safe/good)). The biggest issue is pornography, don't watch at all, or be extremely carefully with your sites, and also use sites with large communities, or with a brand name. It also would hurt to have Peer Guardian running in the background.

Most free anti-virus programs get the job done. As an example, Clamwin is free, open-source, and frequently updated.

I use AVG on all of my computers and I've been virus free for years! It's a great program.

I personally am not sold on free anti viruses, i find they take up a lot of resources and the user interface is not friendly. i use Norton 360 and am very impressed, i hardly notice it is running.