Anybody drop AVG antivirus for MS Security Essentials?

I just recently spent a really long time looking the the different independent testing sites comparing everything. I've personally tried avg, avira, avast, and mse. Of those, the one I liked best that had the best security was avast beta 5.0. MSE works decently, but has some low scores for finding and fixing problems. Avira has the highest scores but also is the least stable of the bunch. I think anything is better than nothing, and since they're all free, just try each and see what works best for you.

Oh yeah, if you are a Bank Of America customer right now they have a deal that gives you McAffee internet security for free. Just go to the BOA home page, and if you can't find it type "McAfee download". It's what I'm using right now.

 

Dumped PCcillan (I think) for Avast.

 

Why replace the drive? Just reformat it and install a fresh copy of Windows. Put in a Windows installation CD and when it gets ready to install just select the option to format your hard drive before installing Windows.
The viruses are just software, it's not hardcoded to the drive. If you really want to make sure any data goes by-by you can "wipe" the drive. DoD standard is to wipe a drive 7 times before the data is considered gone, but one wipe with all zeros is generally sufficient.
Unless your hard drive stopped spinning or was clicking or you got an error message upon bootup that says to replace the hard drive I would say it is healthy.

EDIT: At the moment I am using AVG Free version 9, although I will probably try out the Microsoft version to see if I like it better.

 

I'm going to have to try this new MS program then because AVG has slowed down both our home PC's considerably.