Don't use a firewall, well apart from the one on my router. Anti virus, I use AVG Pro.

Avast-virusprotection is good and doesnt use alot of resources from your system. They also have a free Home edition

XP sp2 Firewall is pretty effective and you shouldnt need another firewall if u have it

Im currently using Blueyonders PCGuard that they offer free if u use their service as it has Popup blocker, parental control, Spyware Blockers ect.
But i have the firewall it includes disabled and use the XP one, as the software is for a stand alone PC and u cannot set it up to allow other PC's to connect through Internet Connection Sharing with it.

i have a new answer to this...

due to the home user versions of most AV being shite we have been running tests on other products, specifically ones which have a built in firewall.

the winner by an absolute mile for value for money, effectiveness and troublefree use was this...

http://www.bullguard.com/

if i had to buy any AV software as a home user it would be Bullguard. It has a 60 day free trial.

id say black ice

Nothing wrong with good old windows firewall. Use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer as its much less vulnerable. Microsofts Anti-Spyware Beta and Nod32 anti-virus

Works for me!

i just use a h/w firewall and AVG, tbh i have run a pc for over a yeah without an AV and it was fine, u just need to keep a chack on what you download, prevention is far better than protection

I used to use Zone Alarm but it can REALLy be a twat on networking. I must admit, it does what it does well but it likes to disable pretty much everything for security. Although this can be good, it's a bit of a git if you're not an advanced user and you don't know how to configure it properly.

A very good firewall to look into would be Sygate Personal Firewall... free and pretty mint.

I use Norton Corp for AV (it's actually very good) and Norton Personal Firewall. Does the job with little effort. Don't listen to people saying "OMG WITH THAT FW, YOU'LL GET HACKED, IT'S SHIT!!" because hacking/cracking just isn't as easy as that :/

i have a firewall on my router for most stuff and the networkf, then use Tiny prof. firewall fas a software firewall. This coupled with free AVG seems to stop everything.

I used to use Norton but it just seemed like bloatware to me. It failed to detect a virus i had, whilst an install of another av program picked it up straight away. After that i dumped norton.

Whatever AV you get, it will never be able to catch every single virus out.

thats why prevention is better, keeping a track of what u download etc.

that's also why a trouble free, low resource option is best. norton internet security, mcafee internet security suite and AVG firewall are all resource hogs and problematic.

norton firewall and norton corp are not hogging at all for me...

yer the corp versions of mcafee and norton are both fine.

Ive always used Norton Internet Security, now using 2006.
Has everything in them, all user friendly GUI's and very easy to use.. All the info is in basic language too, in other words its not advanced PC chat so anyone would understand.
I use the internet alot too, Ive never once had a problem

I use ZoneAlarm Suite at work where software firewalls are needed

it is a firewall anti virus and anti spyware all in 1 its pretty handy and you can set it up to not have to bother the user with any questions if they arent that techy i basically set the firewall to really low hassle and use it mainly as a AV and spyware checker cos i use HW firewalls

NOD32 & hardware firewall