Turn brain off, scared, Kaspersky/Malwarebytes found a bunch of stuff. Something is not right
Unless you can roll back to where problem started, can and have analyzed incident you should not dump AV just yet. Was it Limewire?, porn?, warez?, usb stick? not updated flash getting tricked by your clicks? You forgot to log in as std. user? You must know how to get infected and your own usage in details to be sure there is no need for AV.
But you can get close. Increase passive protection like using a dns-service which blocks malware sites effectively. So forget about Opendns. Then use some browser add-on which effectively blocks more of the same. Let browser itself be unless you want to get rid of ads. Can claim that is a security threat as well. Some are, scams at least. Now to AV. Install Avast 5 but do a custom install. Untick everything but File and Network shield. File shield because that is Avast! and network shield because it also block malware domains
Behavior shield is still under development, might be worth considering if on 32bit OS. Rest is fluff. Do a full scan, reboot, fire up task manager and keep eye on cpu time, i/o read/write. There is practically none and you have not even tweaked settings.
Last week I tried beta of MSE 2.0, feels way better than 1.0 - caching is magic, now also in MSE. More setttings to fiddle with, can be tuned for speed. So you can go all Microsoft if not in mood for Avast or other free offers with risk of ads, toolbars, changing policies. I only trust Avast in this regard. Still too high cpu usage for my taste but since MSE 1.0 is popular I guess 2.0 will be worshiped.
All this you can test in VM. Go to a site listing latest and greatest malware links. How easy is it to get infected, even with brain turned off? Not impossible but much is blocked with little to no overhead or requirements. If you can also manage to keep all important stuff updated I would like to know details of how normal internet activity can go wrong - with you being on top of Windows things in general I bet very unlikely. Not through "downloads" at least. Does not include warez of course.
I think this is the best you can do if not in the mood for auto-quarantine, auto "safe-runs", auto sandboxing and what other gadgets AV-makers come up with. See feature list from Norton, Kaspersky etc. Typically only available in full paid packages. They are aware signature security is only half the story, has always been the case. ClamWin has cloud testing today! Not a weakness but opportunity to suggest you need more "layers"
If your real problem is more the "feeling" of being attacked you should still do this but then also learn about removal. Like you should know why Kasperskys TDSSKiller is so popular, or Hitman Pro, Combofix. Tons of tools. Also you can without much trouble have several bootable cds ready. Throw them all on a usb stick, multi-boot. There are programs for this, well I only know one but I think there are more. Find a "bootable" oriented site. If preparing for cyber attack make you feel better then prepare. Worst than can happen is you get a more realistic relationship to "security" problems. Get rid of the "scared" part perhaps. When scared you listen to security gossip which is not the same as useful consumer information.
tranglos, last I tried Hitman Pro I could add "/quiet" to entry in task scheduler so popup window went away. Was not reset during program update. So if you change schedule to once per year I guess that should equal no bootup scanning. Test. I did not think much of Hitman Pro to begin with but it seems to improve and improve. You know "Force Breach" or hold-down-left-CTRL-button trick? Brilliant.
