In reply to Anne.

Hi Anne. The important thing is to be aware of what you are protecting and the consequences of not protecting it. For a home computer, I'd recommend making sure that you are downloading and installing all software updates, setting updates to 'automatic' will take care of this. Keeping software updated minimises the bugs that attackers can use to install malware on your PC.
Sooner or later you will encounter malware, but any reputable anti-virus programme will be able to detect and remove these without any danger to yourself. I wouldn't recommend browsing the web without having anti-virus running in the background.
Also don't forget to back up any important files that you may have. Disks can fail without the help of any malware. Make sure that you have your photos, important files and digital music collection stored elsewhere so that you can get them back if your computer were to fail.
Hope this helps, Martin.