OK, well I'll be making a fresh start with my laptop soon, and I want to get everything right first time, when I first got it I went a bit crazy installing things and I've never really got rid of it all, there's always something left.
Security software is obviously a major consideration, so I'm looking for opinions.
I'm thinking of using Spyware Blaster, Spybot Search & Destroy, and of course an antivirus program.
But which one?
I've tried Norton (urgh), Avast!, Avira Antivir PE and AVG Free.
AVG was the only one I liked out of those, but does anyone else have a program they really like?
It needs to be effective, customizable, include real-time scanning, and it must be light on resources.  I don't need anti-spam, firewall or anything like that, just AV.  And it doesn't have to be free either, although I would prefer it.
I've been looking at AOL Virus Shield (yes, AOL, the spawn of Satan.  But, it's based on Kaspersky 6 and is apparently very effective - and free), Kaspersky Antivirus 7 or Steganos (based on Kaspersky, but cheaper), NOD32, and F-Secure.
If anyone has any other recommendations I'd like to hear them.
Anyone with any of the mentioned AV programs, or one they want to suggest to me, can you please tell me what you think of it as regards resources, customizability and so on?
Thanks in advance.
Calum.F-Secure got on of the best AV engines available and is on the forefront of rootkit detection. Unfortunately it has a rumor as a resource hog (which was still true last time I tried it) and slow scan speeds.

I think I've mentioned this a couple of times but I use NOD32 on my main machine and I really like. It is light on memory, has a high detection rate, doesn't have a lot of unnecessary features, fast at file scanning and it doesn't bother you every time it does something. You know it's important if it pops up with a warning. And it also got rootkit detection.
Only negative thing I can say about it is that its spyware detection could be better. But you'd probably be better of using a dedicated anti spyware solution no matter what AV software you end up with.

Kaspersky is also a good choice. Good engine, fast, rootkit detection. And as far as I remember it also monitors suspicious activities in the registry. Only negative thing I can say about it is that it has some compatibility issues. It doesn't WORK with the Comodo firewall for example.

Well that was just my two cents... but I think you'd be PRETTY well protected no matter which one you end up choosing.You got any figures on memory usage and scan times for the programs you've used?Sorry no, the above post is a mix of my personal experiences with the programs, AV-Comparatives, and my interest for security related IT news.AVG Antivirus and SpyBot S&D Resident are still doing it for me Calum.
What firewall are you going for? Quote from: FED on September 14, 2007, 08:15:47 PM

AVG Antivirus and SpyBot S&D Resident are still doing it for me Calum.

Sorry no, the above post is a mix of my personal experiences with the programs, AV-Comparatives, and my interest for security related IT news.

AVG Antivirus and SpyBot S&D Resident are still doing it for me Calum.
What firewall are you going for?

BTW the last report i read documented that AVG had the smallest footprint/memory usage of the top 15 A/V apps...i'll dig out the article for you.