The MS freebie is getting rave reviews at the mo and appears to be actually the best AV on the market - pretty good for an MS product (even though I use Windows, not a Mac, I still find MS stuff pretty poorly written). The reason I stick with Avast is history - they've consistently had a good, fairly quick product for over 8 years now. All the others (MS excluded since it's only just started this year) have been up and down. Case in point: Norton. This year, Norton has actually produced a good product (I'm told) - but that's on the back of 5 straight years of bad ones. Not a good record!
In the end, there's no such thing as a perfect AV. Anyone who claims such is a liar. As it happens, I firmly believe that ALL of the AV providers actually fund the creation of viruses, and that the whole thing is a massive con. I also believe MS is in on it. There's just too much money at stake, and it's too easy to actually fix all the holes, for me to believe anything other than we're all being fleeced: either in money (for those who pay for their AV), or lost productivity. Ever notice how Apple & Linux regularly have masses of security patches released, yet very rarely is there a problem? It's true that MS makes the biggest target - they also have the deepest pockets to get it right - if they wanted to. I don't believe they do. Neither do the AV providers. When you're talking about billions of dollars a year... well, money talks.
I'll now put my tinfoil hat back in it's case and hop of my soap box...
