I have always used Avast! Free and it has been great, no payments and no hassles from them. My computers have always been protected, too, and it has always blocked threats
That's all I want really, no hassle, no payment, no threats. I used Mcafee long ago and switched to MS Essentials. Sadly this last one doesn't seem to be the best one either, so I am now on the market for another.
There is a website called WindowsDeal.com which gives away free copies of various programs on a daily basis, sort of like GiveAwayOfTheDay.com, but their free programs are available for a few days, as opposed to only one day or you miss it like GOTD. Once you get to the home page of WindowsDeal.com, click on the link labeled "Giveaways" at the top, and that will take you to the free programs. At any given time, they almost always have some popular Antivirus apps for free. They may offer free periods anywhere from 3 months to a year. But the nice thing is you can simply come back to the site at the end of that time and install another one, which will likely be available. In fact, by that time, the AV you liked and are currently using, may be available for free again. So you may have to uninstall it and clean out any leftover files and registry entries, but it should work again.
