[ale] [OT] good FREE windisease anti-virus software

[m-aaron-r]

My friend Lili called me yesterday, desperately seeking
technical advice on reviving her dysfunctional windisease
Xcrement Pile EEE netbook.

The machine was hanging in the middle of the OS startup, so I
calmed her frazzled nerves by assuring her it was most likely a
windisease corruption that could be fixed with [ram]disk wipe
and a system re-iinstall.  While my happy perpetual mantra is
"I don't do windows",  I was able to connect her with my friend
Sukru at the Stargate Computer repair shop near Emory (North
Decatur and Clairmont). He found, as I suspected, that her
windisease system had been infected by more viruses than
a CDC lab building, and that the bugs had throughly corrupted
her machine. He is in process of getting her system cleaned
off, re-installed and limping along again, but she is now
acutely aware of needing better anti virus software, which
Sukru understandably offered to sell her.

Given that Mafia$oft has turned the virus vulnerabilities of their
incompetent OS designs into a terror driven, self perpetuating,
100% profit point protection racket bonanza for windisease
computer retailers and repair services, I strongly discourage
people from spending any money on windisease anti-virus
software. Even at Sukru's very fair prices, I find it totally
obscene that my friend is having to pay for data recovery
and re-install services in the first place, so I promised to
help her track down a free anti-virus solution for windisease
XP -- just something to keep her out of the tech hospital
until I can get her fully cured with an upgrade to Linux,
something which she is now intensely interested in doing.

Again, "I don't do windows",  but I know there are folks on the
list who do so regularly, so I'm looking for recommendations
on good, FREE (preferably also Open Source) anti-virus
software for windisease XP, keeping in mind that this is
for a netbook which won't have a lot of system resources
to waste.

Google shows up strong on ClamWin, and AVG shows up
as a "free" closed source offering, but I'd be happy to be
educated on the strengths of either as well as any other
options out there.

Lili and I thank you in advance for any and all suggestions!

peace
aaron