Well a lot of good answers!
I figure since being an analyst I'd give you a few pointers.
For those who run Windows:
Firewalls:
Comodo seems to function fairly well, plus being free is helpful to those who are on a budget.
A good paid one I do recommend is Sunbelt/Kerio, they do come highly rated.
Anti-Virus
Im not a real fan of a lot of this "marketed antivirus protection" that you go to the stores and buy. A lot of them really just drag down your computers resources.
AVG and ClamWin I do recommend as free alternatives, the best one I've seen so far that is a paid subscription is NOD32.
Anti-Spam
There seems to be so many different products out there, its hard for me to recommend a specific one.
Browsers:
Firefox or Opera I do recommend, if there are security issues they tend to get fixed a lot faster then IE
One alternative I'm looking at right now is Untangle, you can download the software for it and install it on a dedicated computer. It acts as an all-in-one or a UTM device. (Unified Threat Management)