@ bob3160 and Technical...
Well, I did say quality with "...." around it and with a hint of tongue-in-cheek.
But seriously, I do asssume that because ALL the local mainstream pc magazines here (Australia) have over many, many years consistently rated in the top 3 AV programs, usually 1st or 2nd. I would not debate the merits of NAV over any other AV program as I'm not competent to do so. Sure, I've seen a few other programs in use but I've only used Vet (in its early days) and then NAV. Like many others, I have to rely on the 'expertise' of others to make a consumer's choice and just hope that they got it right. NIS hasn't been a bad program for me but I don't know how good it is, if that makes sense.
I appreciate the time and advice you guys have given me here. For instance, last night I 'googled' for online scanners and used Trendmicro...excellent! I'll be doing that regularly from now on. (I tried to use Panda but couldn't get its popup window to stay open to continue on, probably need to adjust a security setting somewhere).
I am considering everything you guys have suggested and working through the options in my own mind. Maybe when I'm over the mental hump of having to uninstall NIS and reinstall it without NAV those options will look better to me. (After the recent problems I had trying to uninstall NIS and reinstall it because of SP2 I'm just a tad gun-shy of trying it again. Guess Mother didn't raise no hero
).
One of the main things I've got from this forum is that you guys rate avast a quality AV program (without any "...", ok) or else you wouldn't have replaced your NAV with it. That's given me a starting point.