Windows XP Cleaning Procedure

Have followed procedure for removal of Malware type installer that creates message for Viruses Detected! message and hijacked desktop with the square icon in the center. No blue screen background; white instead. This procedure http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=139313 worked perfectly and my computer is running better and better as time goes on. Thanks to whoever came up with this, (Major Attitude I presume) and at some point when I am working full time I'm going to send a donation. I do regular maintenance almost to the letter as described in the maintenance tips section already, and there is some helpful information there as well, but I do have some questions.

My questions are as follows:

1. I have had this one before, right after a complete format and install within a week, only with the blue screen and yellow lettering and it was much worse, so I wiped out my hard drive and reformatted/reinstalled XP again, (fortunately I didn't have anything important saved at that point so it wasn't a big deal to reinstall) but I have no idea what kind of anti-virus protection to use. Microsoft's Windows Defender is useless and the firewall slows it down too much, but at this point I don't want to have to reinstall XP again so I need some kind of effective AV protection. I have not visited any suspicious websites, however I am aware that this stuff can come in through something as seemingly innocent as MSN Hotmail or other supposedly "safe" sites. I've used Norton and McAfee in the past and found them to be ineffective and slow. Firewalls also slow down my system too much, so someone has told me that Firefox is less susceptible than Explorer to this type of Malware and I am wondering if I should just switch to Firefox for a browser?

2. I was not able to download and use MGtools yesterday; today it downloaded and worked, so I ran it and have the logfiles ready to go but am unclear as to where to post and how--do I just cut/paste onto one of these forums or send in the complete file in a .zip file? I did run Hijackthis yesterday and removed several suspicious files and run programs, including the known .exe files in sys32 and temp folders in windows, but that did not cure the problem.

This procedure really works if followed to the letter--it only took once for me and thank you very much! I would really like some ideas, though as to how to prevent this from happening again, and whoever comes up with crap like this should be found out and brought up on charges for malicious intent!

One more thing--if this does happen again and I need to make a backup, will the backup include the virus or malware if I'm just saving important folders and files?

Thanks,

JFH
Vancouver, WA
USA

 

Thanks. I was under the impression that ActiveX was supposed to limit downloads due to threat by disallowing unknown license tags? At least that was my understanding. Should I disable ActiveX in the tools menu under internet options in explorer?