Frankly, there are already very formidable AV solutions out there which don't require any paid subscriptions and whatnot or messing around with AOL. Here are some of my personal recommendations:
<u>Anti Virus</u>
Avira
avast! Home Edition
AVG
<u>Firewalls</u>
ZoneAlarm
<u>Anti-Spyware</u>
Spybot: Search and Destroy
AdAware
Windows Defender
I'd personally steer clear of packages such as Norton, which is notoriously known for its intrusiveness and large amount of resources that it consumes. It's also very difficult to remove too as it writes all sorts of registry values everywhere and actually requires specific flush tools to rid a computer of it properly.
Of course, none of these tools are a substitute for sensible, and secure, behaviour while online. Many attacks are facilitated through some method of social engineering: phishing, for example, being the most common.
You may also like to take a look at the applications you use to interact with the internet as these facilitate your browsing and email reading. Because of this, these specifically are often the first things that are attacked. If you're using email programs such as Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Internet Explorer, these are known for their poor track record with security. You may do well to look at alternatives such as
Mozilla Firefox as a web browser or
Mozilla Thunderbird as an email client. Browser extensions such as
NoScript for Firefox can also further enhance its security; remember that browsers like Firefox aren't immune to security issues too and also have had their exploit vectors in the past, many of which involved JavaScript or plugins in some way which is why things like NoScript can protect you from potentially undiscovered flaws in the browser in relation to these technologies.
Last and certainly not least, it can't really be emphasised enough how important it is to keep up with regular updates for your operating system as these fix potentially critical flaws in the underlying code which may expose you to exploits. Windows users can turn on Automatic Updates from within their control panel, or update manually at the
Windows Update website. If, for whatever reason, you cannot access this or would like another method of obtaining updates there's also a 3rd party, unofficial site called
Windiz Update that allows you to get patches for your OS. This requires the Firefox browser and the installation of a plugin to accomplish this, however.
Well, this post kinda turned into a generalized security advisement rather than only commenting on the OP's suggestion but I hope it serves to be useful to someone, somewhere. =^^=
Take care.