i find comodo to be quite an effective anti virus/ firewall program - you can set the degree of protection, to the point where any connection in or out of the pc requires your permission to continue. so if you access site x, and a file (spyware) rties to background download, comodo will detect and either block it or ask you to allow or block. it even wants to confirm for msn when it tries to log on

i highly recommend it - i also use malwareytes and spybot as secondary programs

George