i have used AVG and have been happy.
Don't be so confident with AVG, I used it for over a year and thought it was great too.
Little did I know there was a server running in the background that Rogers found out about and threatened to shut down my connection. After dealing with tech support the first thing they said was remove AVG and install their Rogers AV (Norton clone), sure enough there it was and got removed.
I don't like Norton either so I went with AVAST and periodically check with IObit Security 360, Returnil, Spyware Doctor & Microtrend Housecall. Yes, i'm paranoid now.
Following Woodpeckr's wisdom, i've dual booted on the laptop to W7 & Linux. Maybe I too will be M$ free some day.