Advice given to me about Surfing the Internet Safely

After having our computer repaired a few weeks ago, it has been working great!  Yay!  I was thrilled to find a small computer shop, close to home, that did a great job recovering my files and getting it up and running for me again.
I wanted to pass along some of the advice that they gave to me.  I had been running Norton 360, which takes up a lot of space, and processing power.  They said I probably didn't need something like that, unless I was running a small business out of my home.  Their opinion was to use a few FREE programs that are out there to take care of anti-virus and spyware, malware, etc. 
This is what they recommended:
*Always use Mozilla Firefox as your browser, as many infections take advantage of Internet Explorer, Firefox is a safer alternative. (www.getfirefox.com)---Firefox has add-ons to help with more security (World of Trust was recommended to warn against sites with a poor reputation)
*Spybot Search and Destroy (www.safer-networking.org)---this is a manual scanner and should be updated and used every 2 weeks.
*Malwarebytes Anti-malware (www.malwarebytes.org)---again a manual scanner to be updated and used biweekly.
*AVG Antivirus & Antispyware (www.freegrisoft.com)---Automatic scanner
*Windows Defender (www.microsoft.com)---for Windows XP and Vista---Automatic scanner

So, if you are looking for some other options for anti-virus and more, you may want to check these programs out.  Please remember, I am not a computer professional, but am just passing along the advice of my computer repair shop. Pin It