This is from a windows user...
AVG is the best free antivirus. Out of all the free ones, it's the most trusted.
Firewall? XP's built in firewall should be fine. Honestly, the threat of being invaded by hackers is virtually nil, and any virus that comes in through the internet should be caught by your antivirus. Plus if you have a router you're already pretty well protected. I've never run a firewall--I have XP's turned off--and I've never had any problems.
For AIM client, GAIM. But for anything else, Trillian. GAIM is good for AIM but sucks for everything else. It doesn't support anything but chat and file transfer.
For spyware, I'd run more than one. While you'll most likely never have a problem with a spyware program finding the spyware (unless it's very well hidden, and in that case it's probably more viral than anything,) some programs have trouble deleting certain spyware. Personally, Ad-Aware and MS Antispyware have never done me wrong.
I don't use any "misc utilities" on my computer so I can't comment. There are some tweaking programs that make XP run faster but they mainly disable services and do regtweaks. You can find a guide online to do these things yourself.
Forecastfox (for firefox, duh) has never let me down. But konfabulator is good if you're coming from a mac.
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