is avg a good antivirus option? or should one stick with norton?

I have used both, I like Norton better.

Stick with norton if you have money to spare. If you are like me in the cheap side use AVG or you could try avast from avast.com

Tests show that all AV products are up to the job with the viruses that are out there and raging around. The big AV products like Norton and MaAffee are better when it comes to analysing potential virus like bahaviour (heuristic analysis).

Norton and McAffee are slower to respond to new threats than small companies like AVG and others. From the biggies Kaspersky has a rapid response.

AVG goes along with Norton without trouble. If you wanna try AVG try the AVG 7 free Beta (test) version. I am using it right now alongside Norton.

Another interesting catch is the free AV scanner Antivir. It is said to find spyware also.

Avast AVscanner I happen to be not familiar with. But I would say there is a fair choice on the free AV programs.

One last tip to stay out of Internet trouble would be to start using another browser than I.E.. For now they are less of a security threat. Try Opera (my choice) or Firefox. Both of them are faster and cooler. They have stuff like tabbed browsing. So every new web page is another tab in the uppersisde of the screen. it is soooo convenient.

* AntiVir Personal Edition is a good choice
* eTrust EZ Security Suit seems to work fine (1 year free)
* Kaspersky is not a good choice due to DEMO limitations

but if u don't wanna die for money, use McAfee.

after SP2, IE is no less secured than any other browser. it is not true that IE is slower, the difference of speed of different browsers are made on the client side, the server response is always all the same for any browser.

if you want Tabbeb & Cool browsing, use Avant Browser.