Your recommended Anti-virus, Firewall, Pop-Up & Spy Blocker

I just use the WinXP firewall. It seems to function as well as most of the commercial products and doesn't cause any problems with the OS at all.

For Anti-virus I've stuck with AVG for the last 2 years without having any problems. It's free, uses few system resources and updates are plentiful.

I use the Google Toolbar's pop-up blocker which is 99% effective and run Spybot and AdAware once a month or so just to tidy things up. I use teh free versions of all of these so there is no cost or annual renewals to worry about.

I don't frequent the sort of sites that are best known for infecting systems (game sites, porn sites, etc..) so maybe that saves me a lot too.

I used to use AVG, however i found it great at finding viruses, butuseless at removing them. I have now switched to Avast!, which is also free for home use. So far im quite happy with it.

I normally use Zonealarm for a firewall, but i just switched to windows XP 64, which zonealarm does not support. Im currntly using the default windows firewall. It appears to be ok, but im not a big fan of letting windows manage itself. At least zonealarm lets you block outgoing processes, i regualrly used to block the windows processes that had no need to access the internet (media player etc..)

As for spyware, im uing the MS spyware checker, and so far it appears to be pretty decent.

I like to stick to free tools, dont see the pointo paying £50 a year for norton etc when I can do the job fo free!