I have never run any anti-virus on my personal computer and have never had an issue. I always use it on the kids however as it is easier than having to re-build the systyem when they go somewhere or do something they shouldn't. Used AVG for free and moved to System Suite and ESET NOD 32 when paying.

I prefer avast. It's reliable, it does not take much memory or CPU, and if it thinks something is wrong with a website, it will warn you or block it unless you tell it not to.

I've been using NOD32 for many years now. Never had any problems with it or with any kind of malware. Common sense also helps. :)

Yes malware bytes and microsoft security essentials are the best free ones, and if you dont go to f'd up sites, those will serve you well.

Cant say anything about Kapersky, but its new Kapersky 2011 got a 9 outta 10 from Maximum PC, so that tells you something....

Agree with this but MSE is a good free alternative. As others suggested I'd also use Spybot Search and Destroy and Spywareblaster.

Use Avast! free version (don't pay for that Internet Security crap) for antivirus and use Spybot S&D and Lavasoft's AdAware to take scan for spyware (use manual scans once a week, maybe before bed or something if they run too slow for you).

Also, use Firefox, download Ghostery and config it to block all sites in its list. Download NoScript, only whitelist scripts from the site itself (you actually need a couple to make youtube.com work). Use AdBlock Plus and subscribe to EasyList when it asks you if you want to after the first browser restart. Use FlashBlock to avoid having flash running willy-nilly.

Also, Better Privacy extension doesn't hurt, but doesn't protect you from viruses and adware per se, just from being tracked.

Oh and avoid sites like Facebook that don't give a crap if your machine gets infected via their site.

The second biggest vector of virus infection last year was from ads, even from reputable websites such as The New York Times. The biggest was PDF files, so download Sumatra or Foxit and avoid the PDFs you don't absolutely need.

Also, avoid IE unless you're using it for Windows Update.

I've used most of them and keep coming back to Avast (for virus definitely NOT for firewall).

The ones that have made a mess out of my past computers have been Norton, McAffee and Panda Cloud. And Microsoft's anti-virus was absolutely useless.

I should warn the most about Panda, however, if your computer crashes with that running you won't be able to uninstall or reinstall it and conflicts with a lot of stuff on your computer. Also doesn't help that when you go to uninstall it flashes up messages in Spanish.

Super Anti-Spyware
Security 360 (IObit)
and
Malwarebytes are good runners up as secondary spyware removers.

Lol, I remember in the support forums awhile back someone was complaining that Panda kept detecting itself as a virus. XD

I prefer either Comodo Internet Security (free! It's FW + AV, but you can choose to install just the AV) or avast!

Vorax