What is the best anti-virus/firewall software out there?

[Brad]

And try uninstalling Norton... you are guaranteed to get a blue screen of death at some point after it is gone... and maybe before.

Some of the computer types out there might find this funny. 

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[Economics_Nerd82]

CA Internet Security Suite.

[Matt]

how should you go about getting rid of norton or mcafee

[BleacherBull]

I've used Kaspersky for 1.5 years and have a wireless router as a firewall.  No problems so far.

[Brad]

I was looking at Kaspersky at Staples and the guy there said he didn't like it, that it did too much and was a behemoth of a program.  He said they typically load Panda on customers' PCs and have no problems or complaints.  He likes Panda himself.  Interesting. 

I appreciate the feedback, any other?  Still not sure which way to go.  Leaning towards Kaspersky

[Velcro]

I've heard good things about Kaspersky.  Never used it though.  I can't imagine it is anywhere near as a behemoth as norton and macafe, and isn't hacked by every virus out there, so it is probably a safe bet.

and as i mentioned, I've had very good experience with anything from computer associates too.

Either one should be fine.  Never used Panda either.  And typically, I ignore what staples and best buy say regarding anything technical.  But that is just me. 

[Brad]

Who do you rely on then, Victoria's Secret?

I might risk a virus on that...oh...inappropriate.  Sorry, wrong board. 

[swamprat]

No single AVS will protect you from everything. Somebody brought me a trojan infested machine that was running CA 2009 as the AVS. If you don't have a well setup firewall, I recommend running malwarebytes and spybot s&d scans nightly on top of your AVS. If you have another computer on your network, I'd also have a different AVS scan your drives from that computer nightly.

Firewalls are as good as how they are setup. Most router firewalls, out of the box, are setup with basic configurations that allows access to ports that you would not think to close down, but need to be closed down. Window firewall works fine if setup properly too.

Use Google. You can find how to setup anything from there.

AVG 8.5 running with everything activated, is just as big a resource hog as Norton.

DISCLAIMER: Before I get barraged with "my computer is doing this" questions, as always happens when I let it be known what I do for a living on boards like this, please note that I cannot diagnose a computer problem, unless the machine is sitting in front of me. I do not claim to be an expert on anything, and am just relaying 20 + years of experience working with and programming these things professionally. 

[Triple B]

AVG 8.5 running with everything activated, is just as big a resource hog as Norton.

Just great .... but that would partially explain the sluggishness of my pc, though.

[ZeroBullChip]

You know what, I don't use AV on my home PC's.  They are behind a firewall and any user that logs in other than me has restricted rights...  I've never had a virus.  Now, that doesn't mean it can't happen.