Depending on your setup and access to unwanted hardware, the best thing you could do is install something like Smoothwall or IPCop on a box on your network.

Both of these are linux distributions whose sole job is to be a firewall. They have very little interferance with your network, and even those with no linux knowledge will be able to configure and install them with ease.

I've got Smoothwall installed on an old 486 that I had sitting around the house, so you don't need to spend a lot of money if you don't have a spare machine lying around.

AV, I'd be pointing you towards my personal favourite of the moment - Panda Sofware Antivirus. I've found it to be sturdy and very user friendly.

User friendly sounds good, although when we're talking about me, idiot-proof is better.

I've found software firewalls to be cumbersome- especially Symantic's offerings.

At both home and work I use hardware firewalls, and Symantic Norton Antivirus (2007 at home, enterprise at work).

I really like having the hardware firewall in my router on my US network.

Being techno-challenged (read "idiot"), I'm not sure that I'm up to setting up a router in French for the other 5 months of the year.

Another vote for Avast (home edition) and ZoneAlarm. Have been using both for more than three years without any issue.

Are you running WinXP and IE7?