>>>We are an AVG reseller (have been for years), but now we recommend Microsoft Security Essentials - free, lightweight, and accurate.
>>
>>I have heard good things about MSE. Now if I can just get past the mental hurdle of trusting Microsoft for the security of my computer....
>
>Speaking of which, I'm looking for a freebie firewall. Always had one - first it was the AtGuard on NT4 and W2k, but it didn't want to work on XP. So I switched to SyGate (later bought by, of course, Symantec and turned into ZoneAlarm), and that worked fine until I went 64-bit.
>
>Now I'm looking for the next one, which needs to satisfy two conditions:
>
>- price: free or up to $30
>
>- can set the rules both ways, and will ask me first time about everything.
>
>You can see why I wouldn't trust Microsoft with that. If it was so open to suggestions as I want it, it would alert everyone whenever a .msi calls something.microsoft.com...


Comodo ranks #1 and is free. Zone Alarm is not even recommended according to this analysis (which is very extensive):

http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge-64/results.php