thank you for the feedback it is always good to know this kind of info in case someone searching for a clue to a similar problem may find their answer here. As to the firefox question, I had missed where you asked how to use it in your other thread, it did kinda get lost. To use firefox which you have on your pc you just go to the firefox icon on your desktop or find it in your start> all programs list and open it, double click the icon, it will open up the web browser and you use it just like you would IE, just type in where you want to go and it will take you there. Now I would guess if someone installed firefox some time ago and you never used it that it will be an old and out of date version so you probably would need to update it, you can do that by clicking on Tools> Options> then go to the update area and you have the option to choose to update firefox, your add-ons etc. I would say go to Help > about firefox and let us know which version it says you currently have and we can help you more once we know that. The link below is a good guide. Here is a link that might be useful: firefox guide

I know what I would do. Head to microsoft and download security essentials virus program. Then Trash norton ... after going to their site and finding the uninstall tool for it. Install Security Essentials - so simple ... and it works. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Jane, I have the free version, and I never tell it to scan. It has a screensaver that self-installs, and after my computer is idle for the time I have set for the screen saver to activate, it automatically starts scanning. The background is the shooting stars thingy, and a little box moves around recording the number of files scanned. When it is finished, it tells you, and the screen saver part just keeps on shooting stars at you. I don't even recall ever trying to configure anything about Avast, and it scans my incoming e-mails. I think I did check for it not to scan outgoing ones. You do have to register it, but that's free. I find it just sits down in the bottom tray and does its thing, and every morning shortly after I go online, a little box pops up and a male voice announces that it has updated. I find the interface of AVG rather clunky, so that's why I stopped using it, although I think it's also a fine AV program.

So, is the paid version of Avast going to provide a significant additional benefit to someone who is fairly knowledgeable about navigating on the Internet? In my opinion, no For someone running 3 machines and with your considerable knowledge I am quite surprised that you do not try MSE on one of those computers. It provides everything Avast and Malwarebytes have but is fully automatic - but you already are aware of that of course.