NOD32 with Spybot-S&D is the best combo to keep your machine in order. Chances for viruses are slims nowadays but spywares... god that's so annoying. been reading many comments ... and i think the main problem is ppl don't know the difference between viruses and spywares.
one my teachers at skool told us about that malwarebytes-anti-malware and it works great just like you said. it finds stuff that even good anti-virus doesn't find and is especially good and finding and getting rid of malware that many are getting by clicking on search link results from google.