AVG will try, but it may not always succeed. Most virus scanners look for known viruses, meaning the latest Windows worm might not be caught until it has already infected a lot of computers. It’s safer to not use Outlook for email AT ALL. Try something like Eudora or the free Thunderbird instead.
More important than which virus/spyware scanner you use is which browser you use. Most of the viruses and spyware out there exploit flaws in Internet Explorer, so switch to either Firefox or Opera. You can still use AVG and the spyware program of your choice for an additional level of protection.
Basically, regardless of which antivirus and antispyware programs you use, just stay away from Outlook and IE.
I have Firefox, and use it almost exclusively. I do have Outlook. It has my old email address so I get spam there (and practically nothing else), which I delete every 3-4 days. Outlook serves as my PIM. Can you suggest another?
And the only time I use IE, is when a site requires it.
There are many other e-mail clients available, but if you’re happy with Firefox, you should check out Thunderbird. It’s run exclusivly on my machine, my parents machine, and on all the PCs at our office.
It does useful things like not automatically running virus-laden scripts when viewing/previewing messages, and disables image retrieval by default (unless you click the handy button) so as not to announce your reading of spam to the spammers.
It can also import your mail from Outlook or Outlook Express.
Outlook is fine as a PIM, but don’t use its email capabilities. The preview pane is a factor in a lot of attacks, but some later worms have managed to work around that and infect a system with or without the preview pane.
As for alternatives, the ones mentioned so far are all good
