Are my virus and spyware guards bluffing me?

I am using Windows Vista with Avast anti virus and AVG anti-spy ware installed onto it. I update everything regularly (once a week on an average). It has been one year since I have these things installed on my new machine.

They have never ever reported a single Virus though some tracking cookies are sometimes reported (I run a full system scan quite frequently).

Is this an indication that my anti-spy ware and anti-virus tools are not functioning properly (or probably a virus is not making them function properly) or everything is going just fine?

Are my virus and spyware guards bluffing me?antivirus programs

I am sure you are fine. Those are two dependable anti-malware apps that you are using. Hell, I have only had a full-blown virus once, way back in 2003.

But you definitely need to update everything more than once a week. Dozens of new malwares are created by the "black-hats" each and every day. Your programs can't detect 'em if they don't have definitions for 'em!

My Anti-virus (Active Virus Shield) issues about 18 new virus signature definition updates a day and I have it set to automatically check for them every 15 minutes.

I believe your Avast issues about 1 update every day but you can set Avast to automatically check every 4 hours. I am not too sure about AVG A-S, but I am sure it updates more frequently than once a week.