A good anti-virus that is ^really^ free?

[UnSerpentQuiCourt]

Hi
My hotmail account has gone mad and is sending out hundreds of emails a day - obviously a virus (?) My school laptop seems to have lost its virus protection and it will be weeks until the technician visits.

Is there a good, free anti-virus thingy I could run to help patch things up in the interim? Ones I have found through google keep pretending they are free and then suddenly demanding that I subscribe.

I use Avast, have had no issues at all.

I use malwarebytes and avg both free and havn't had a problem.

have used avast/avg (same thing) free version for a long time with no problems.
my dbro recommends and uses it himself and he's an IT bod.

Avast here too

Avast!

And Stig - erm, noooooo! Avast is most definitely not the "same thing" as AVG - totally different products/companies.

Sorry - just actually bothered to read you OP properly.

The lack of antivirus on your laptop is likely what's allowed some malware to harvest your hotmail password, so you probably do have infections, but it's usually not an infection on your PC that's now physically sending all those emails.

If you change your hotmail password (from a known clean computer) the outgoing spam emails will probably stop.

In general this problem is a result of hotmail account login details being compromised and a spammer then using the account from some foreign location.

Stig - Avast not the same as AVG to the best of my knowledge !!

I've used AVG for some time on lots of machines. It does try to encourage choice of the paid-for version at stages, so you need to look for FREE option wherever there are choices. Link that Stig gave will get you to AVG site.

May also be worth running the online anti-virus from Trend Micro. It's called HouseCall (as in a Doctor's house visit, though those aren't so common now!)

Thanks for pointing that out lazydog and NetworkGuy. Sorry for any confusion caused.

I use Avast - have done for 2 years now and its completely free. and had no problems either - its picked up all the weird stuff when webpages try and download onto your PC etc.

Wouldnt go back to paying now. In fact am gutted I paid for so long!!

Thank you for your ideas! Will try changing my password. Sure that my laptop is infected too, since I can't get onto the Internet at all using it any more. Will try all your suggestions.

I use Microsoft Security Essentials on the Windows machines in our house. Its good and free...