MS security essentials is the best, then Eset NOD32

Do not use McFee or norton...

As fo the free ones like Avast and AVG, BkEWARE they may leave more spyware on your system then they remove...
Some of them flag stuff that isnt harmful justso you think its working, 

I have grown up in the computer age and never once had avirus on my machines, and others that i know who have didnt need and AV to tell them or remove it... 


Also panda cloud is good too...

Also a fun fact, the first virus ever was created by out of work computer techsto keep them in buisness.. this is why I dont trust most AVapps...

Or you could get a Mac and just not worry about it...lol

I wholeheartedly agree with you!  Why spend all the money on software and possibly a new computer only to expose it to potential online dangers.  If you are building a serious DAW I see no reason to have to go online.  If you have something that you want to upload you can copy the files and upload them from a different computer.  My experience with antivirus software is that it can seriously slow your machine down.  Why would you want to do that when you are trying to achieve the fastest processing speeds and lowest latency?  I have run my DAW for several years now offline and never had one problem other than overloading my processor with more than it could handle.