I personally don't find security too bothering an issue. I used to spend hours finding the perfect security suite, but I gave it all up.
I recommend free ones, because aftery our subscription period, your security is no more and you have to pay again.
I recommend AVG 8.0 Antivirus Free Edition. It includes anti-virus, anti-spyware, an active resident shield, scanner, and update manager. For firewall, I would just use windows firewall.
NOTE: according to experts, nod32 and kaspersky are the best. but many software reviewers think norton is good too. But I would just use AVG. It is free, stable, and offers decent protection.
Avast users often criticize AVG. But i just dont like the avast interface. It is like a media player. AVG has a cleaner and a more user-friendly and graphical UI (user interface).
It is actually pretty hard to get virus using that configuration. Well, I never got a virus like that, because I don't download malicious content off the internet. When AVG sees something dangerous, the resident shield will give a message, and you can place it in the virus vault, heal, or ignore.
If you dont feel very safe with windows firewall, try Comodo firewall.
it is free too but it offers advanced features. But I would just use avg. I tried many of these suites before but they would slow down your computer speed.
AVG does not. And personally, i don't think rootkits are a big deal, as they are very rare to be found.