Ok so I've been debating weather I wanted to go with AVG or F-secure for my AV. I know there both good products but I don't know if one has a hand up one the other. Or is there something out there that's better? Any opinions?

Also what about a good firewall? I noticed Grisoft and F-secure also had a firewall but I'm not sure if it would be better than windows firewall. Of course to some people anything is better than Windows firewall. Is there a highly recommended firewall that's not going to slow down my computer?

Windows firewall only checks incoming packets; a fully featured firewall will check those as well as outgoing packets; the latter prevents malware from "calling home" if it ever gets on your hard drive.

I have used AVG for several years with great success. As long as an AV provides real-time protection, has frequent definition updates, and is fairly easy to use, you have many from which to choose. Since these are free, you can download, install, and update one of them at a time and see which you prefer.
Regards,
John

I also have used AVG Ree Edition for several years. As far as a firewall I like use and recommend SyGate 5.6

Here is a great article on computer safety which covers all basics.

fsecure has a high rate of detection. according to www.virus.gr, only kaspersky is better, but i also heard that fsecure uses the kaspersky engine. i would go with fsecure for anti-virus.