Too many cooks spoil the PC soup....
 

Am I the only one that finds it odd that the more spyware, adaware, firewall, anti-virus software, etc that is run on a PC, the more problems the user seems to have with keeping a clean machine?

My setup is the absolute minimum I feel comfortable with. A brand name non-free antivirus, an antispam under the same non-free brand name (to handle span on Outlook and prevent pop-ups in IE), and a free firewall (ZoneAlarm). I disabled XP's firewall in preference of just using ZA. I tried installing a spybot type software a while back, and within a week I had a virus and ended up having to re-install. Other than that I've had a squeaky clean machine for a few years now. Have I just been lucky or is my 'the simpler the better' policy actually working?

Regards
Stoney

In a word, yes.

I don't want to spend all of my time doing things for the computer, it is there to do things for me. I have a very similar approach to you Stoney, and the only grief I have ever had is when I deleted a Linux partition which I never wanted in the first place. Other than that it has been as good as gold. But I don't visit many dodgy websites either.