Throwing my hat in the ring.

I still run (oh my gosh) Win XP Pro on several PCs.

On XP:
Avast was too annoying. A year ago, so now ????
Panda was also rather annoying although highly rated. Recently
removed.
Panda needed a removal tool to get rid of.
Avira is annoying but so far tolerable. Currently installed on XP.

On my Win 7 PCs I run MS Security Essentials.

I also run on all (all free):
Malwarebytes
Spybot
Spyware Blaster.
as necessary AdAware

Never had a virus ever and I surf all day.
I have had a few webpages disabled with warnings but nothing bad
happened.

The best way I know of to determine what any of the anti-virus apps are
doing is to get:
SysInternals - Process Explorer
and select
Options / Always On Top
Click CPU column to get the high % usage to the top
and make it small but visible of the side of the screen.

It will be obvious what app is sucking the CPU dry.

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