Why does anyone pay for an antivirus program when
Avast is free for home users?
My PC came with McAffee as well, and when it expired I looked around and found good reviews for
Avast. Consumer Reports (which is admittedly not a PC magazine) ranked it in the top three or maybe five antivirus programs along with Norton and McAffee. It checks for updates each time you connect to the internet, and new ones seem to come out a couple times a week on average.
I've been using it for almost a year on my home PC, and have no symptoms of virus problems.