I can't agree with the no firewall stratergy there although I will definately agreed that most virus or spyware come from user greed / errors and people do need to be carefull which sites the d/l from and don't just think 'oh kewl it's free !' and 'oh yeah I've got a firewall , that will protect me from everything'
I use za ( + spybot/adaware and other occasionals )and find it really great but I also like to use total uninstall and have a quick check afterwards to see what the proggy installed or edited in the registry , I also really like autoruns as if you check nice and regularly you know what is there and what has mysteriously appeared since last time!
hey it took me ages to d/l from abandonia as I was really suspicious that anything to do with abandoned games or free stuff was suss
I have also always used IE as i'm too lazy to change as it does what I need