Bizi

I use AVG Free. I've had attempts to infect my machine, and it has intercepted them/prevented infection. I find the interface clean and easy to use ... it mostly does its thing in the background without requiring any input from me, other than in situations where I've set it up to "ask/tell me about it". There were times I suspected infection but turned out the problems were not due infection. (I ran housecall and another to double check, and they found my machine to be clean).

AVG does have a paid offering as well, with more functionality. So far though, I have been satisfied with just the Free version. I've been using it for about 7-8 years now. I have a fairly tame use of the internet. If yours isn't so tame, you might look into the paid offering as well, if you're interested in changing.

I am also fairly careful what I click on. Much of the adware-type malware doesn't come down spontaneously, but fakes out the user to get permission to install. A common scam, for instance, tells you you are running an old version of java, click here to update. If you click... you are giving it permission to install stuff... adware, malware, whatever.... not Java though.

I do also keep Windows User Account Control enabled. It can be bit of a nuisance but it's not too bad, and I like having the extra checkpoint in case I do accidentally click a malicious ad that launches an installer.