Problems with CA Internet Security Pkg.

Hi,
I installed CA Internet Security on my pc in October of '06. I couldn't get part of it to work, & now the anti-virus is causing my pc to lock up, besides being extremely slow. Yesterday I disabled the email scan & that helped some, but today had my email lock up again, so I've decided to find something else. I went back thru some of the old threads & think I'll download AVG & save it, then uninstall CA completely & install AVG. I just don't want to be vulnerable to a virus w/o something on my pc while I change from one to the other & thought that might work.

I've been using the Windows Firewall because the CA firewall wouldn't even let me out on the interent, so I uninstalled it. Do you think that the Windows Firewall is all I need or is there another Firewall that would do a better job? I'm also going to be doing this on my laptop, as we'll be traveling this summer & will be using WiFi & DSL where we stay & want it to be safe.

I also Have Windows Defender on my both my pc & laptop & was told that it was all I needed for spyware. Do you agree with this or is there a better way to go?

TIA,
Jan in Central Illinois