Merrit,
I have used AVG before and wasn't impressed. I would much rather monitor it myself. My system runs much better since I took that "Junk" off.
I have looked at the emulators for Linux, but haven't had too much time to work out the kinks- I just can't take a day trying to get it configured correctly to work on the network with QB and it's stupid problems. I really hate that program. Maybe someday I will make the time to get everything working together correctly.