[benohear]

You make a good point. Though this particular friend might well stick to it - €1600 tends to focus the mind.

But to be honest, I'm asking primarily for myself and my family. I'm not sure anyone can really be sure there is no malware on their browser (via Flash zero days or what have you), especially if several members of the family use the computer. This gets much worse with teenage kids.

So gambling the entire contents of my bank account on the assumption I'm malware free isn't quite doing it for me.

That's why I'm thinking that a straightforward setup is appealing: "When I bank, I use the OS on this USB key and don't use it for anything else".

But I also wanted to know what people around here do. Simply assume their machine is clean or take further steps?