If your PC has ever been affected by a virus such as a Trojan or worm then you will already know the importance of antivirus firewall software and just how much time and not to mention money that it can save for you.
What antivirus firewall software does is shield and protect your computer OS indeed laptop from nasty little programs that want to take over your pc, maybe to gather personal information. Without this software you are putting your machine at a risk.
The firewalls job is to stop these programs from ever reaching your computer and should be updated on a daily basis, this will keep it's data base informed of all the new threats out there. While the antivirus will kill any little things that do manage to get through, the same applies here in that it should be updated to make sure it is aware of the new viruses.
I remember the last virus I had (before I installed antivirus firewall software) it stopped me from using my windows XP control panel so I had no way of uninstalling it. It changed all my settings such as screen resolution and video card settings and even had the cheek to put the words "virus infection" underneath my computers clock. I had to wipe all my important files and reinstall windows xp.
So up to date protection is a real must especially with all the new viruses that appear every day and the best protection is antivirus firewall software.