Need advice on security software of "computer illiterate" teacher

I need advice on which security and anti-virus software to install on my wife's computer that is target toward "computer illiterates" and as automatic and user friendly as possible. My wife and I live in separate parts of the United States (due to work) so I can't fix up her computer messes.

During the last year she has managed to completly ruin two windows installations by downloading stuff from the Internet. She is a teacher and are routinely surfing the net looking for stuff to incorporate into her lessons. Apparently clip arts and educational material online are packed with malware and viruses.

Anyhow, I have now done a complete rehab of her HP TM2 notebook with Core 2 processor (installed SSD, 8GB ram, and Windows 8). What software should I install on her computer that will protect her from malware, viruses, etc, and is easy to use and pretty much automatic?

 

The windows 8 version of microsoft security essentials is called windows defender, its pretty good low maintenance option, the updates are rolled in with the windows updates to pretty much silent updates. Just make sure you set the maintenance schedule to daily and it should be fine. Add in chrome and adblock and you have less hassle i suppose.

 

DDDenniZZZ provided a pretty good answer.
In addition, I would suggest you install Malwarebytes (free) on the laptop.
It could be used to identify/remove things that MSE (or Windows defender in Win8) might not 'see'.
But MSE is hardly exclusive in that regard.
Large amount of antivirus software (free or otherwise) have a tendency to miss various things that MBAM is otherwise able to pick up.

Aside from that... Usage of Chrome and Adblock for web browsing is a good suggestion as well.

What else...
Nothing immediate comes to mind - except for possibly advising your wife to manually scan the downloaded stuff from the net for he lessons and do more research on what she's downloading.
She has to be a bit more alert