I use Firefox (preferred) or Chrome. IE is needed for Windows updates, other than that I never use it.
This should have been in a thread of its own. To answer your question I use avast free, MBAM, Comodo Firewall v5.12 and a nice addition would be MCShield. Check out our signatures for more ideas. Each user have their likes and dislikes. But MBAM is always a great software to have.