I had the same experience with AVG. Sluggish and not finding anything, I used Trend Micro's online housecall and found viruses. I ditched AVG for Avast and have been pleased with it so far.

I would be like to hear about the OP other ideas for firewall and malware.

Every product that I've ever bought from SonicBlue has been malformed and returned to sender.

The technology sounds cool, but I'll probably wait until it's available from another vendor.