I know this questions comes up again and again on this board....so here it is again.

For the last several years I've run Norton Antivirus on my computer, but I've been having connectivity issues that seem to be mostly the fault of my cable company, but Norton seems to contribute to the problem.

I've uninstalled Norton and currently have the Windows firewall enabled. I've read opinions that say antivirus software does more harm than good. What are the opinions of saavy users who read this board? What brands do you recommend?

(I know I can solve a lot of the problem by using Mozilla Firefox, but my wife will only use Microsoft IE )