Hmmmm,

I would suggest that in the current climate a firewall probably does more than a traditional AV scanner.

My version of AVG on this box has found two in 18 months.......and both of those are .txt files, so they must have been sent to me for analysis.

Current attacks seem to be backdoors, worms, trojans and spyware.

I do run an AV, but I guess that is more out of habit than anything else. I know people who don't and just regularly use online scanners like PC-Cillin and Panda.

I tend to use Firefox with the script blocking plug-in rather than IE, which i think is a help. I have also set IE to prompt regarding ActiveX, scripts and so on. I also set my browser to clear down on closing and the history and Java cache to 0.

If I have a dubious file I send it to Virus Total and Jotti for analysis as they use a variety of scanners.

I also use Spybot Search&Destroy, AdAware SE, EWIDO and A-squared which find a few odds and ends from time to time.

I guess I can see the logic behind linlover929's argument, particularly if you practise safe computing.

Incidentally AFAIK Norton was bought by Symantec a while back. It certainly works adequately, but I agree again that it has become very bloated. I am not so worried about the size, as the amount of resource that it hogs.

A few weeks ago an American consumer magazine did a survey of anti-malware products and caused a real stink when they got some outfit to write them 5,000 (?) new nasties based on the style of existing stuff. The results were less than comforting, I assure you