Good to know, danke.
One thing I haven't kept up with for a long time (should have) is malware issues. I still run AVG, at one point in time the were one of the best, of course many others have been too, is AVG still up to par?
What MrRipley said: All antivirus programs lag behind, they only can handle known viruses and behaviour patterns. Yet it helps to have one. AVG was ranked second best of the free ones in a Finnish computer magazine this January. A few points were lost due to it not being available in Finnish, some other for showing and advertising features that only work in the paid version. Conclusion: For those who like to tweak the settings.
Remember, though, that malware is much more than just viruses. The OP's case is a good example of malware which may bypass any antivirus program. Why? Because they aren't viruses! Several years ago Norton/Symantec was threatened by lawsuits if they continued "restricting legitimate marketing efforts of reputable companies" in the form of adware. No wonder that Norton was the fastest in scanning in that January AV reviews...
If you want to stay safe, the best anti-malware system sits between the back rest and keyboard. Use other browsers instead of IE, install plugins like WOT (WebOfTrust) to prevent you from accessing to known harmful sites and NoScript to block harmful or at least unnecessary scripts and other code. Tweak the browser settings to clean all temporary files when the browser is shut down. Run Ccleaner after heavy surfing to get rid of inactive malware lurking in Temp folders. Run an updated Anti-Malware scan regularly to find nasties other than viruses.
Use Linux for reckless surfing and Windows only for gaming and other tasks that are dependent on it.
