This may be a dumb computer question but......?

if you have a really good firewall, don't download anything, open any email attachments, or go on any nasty web sites how important is anti virus or spyware software?

in other words, if you practice safe browsing what are the odds of getting an infection more serious than a tracking cookie?

This may be a dumb computer question but......?pc security

Probably 75% guarantee that you will get infected with-in a month or so. I tried the same myself and it took only 1 month for a problem to filter through the system. It is just the nature of Windows to attract problems.

I personally use a free program from Avant that works great.

This may be a dumb computer question but......?symantic

They're not really important if you watch what you do. I go years with no protection. If you read these forums you'll see that the only ones getting infected are the peeps who will try anything once.

Make sure you have no one sending you forwards and don't open any junk mail or go to low-class places and you won't be bothered.....:-) Again, tell your Email friends to do NOT send you any forwards.
Careful-- never no..
probably not very likely you will get hacked but I have all of this anti spyware stuff on my computer but I do pay some bills online and would hate for it to become HACKED
So far I have had no problems with it.