The one thing I will comment on is if she has AVAST currently on the pc set up and running well and it is updating and taking care of business then I would leave it well enough alone. If she were to try to now install some other AV program then AVAST would have to be fully removed first not a task I think you would allow her to do on her own and there would be no need to undertake that if she has a good working AV. Plus if this is an older pc resources may already be stretched and limited and using a resource hungry AV like Norton will definitely stretch her resources much more and that is not a good thing. Free AV like AVAST and Microsoft Security Essentials are absolutely fine and are highly recommended. However a malware remover is a different program which is why I suggest using malwarebytes, superantispyware is also a fine malware remover both free. A good layered protection is the absolute best protection you can have. I am a comcast customer but don't use my comcast email account. Outlook express is no longer supported in newer versions of windows it is about to the end of it's life span and it is a good idea to go ahead and move on from it to something newer. There is a good comcast dedicated forum over at BBR this is the link there you can find comcast personnel there quite often. Comcast HSI I second what Owbist mentioned, using team viewer to access her pc from your home to work on it. It is simple to use and works well. TeamViewer

malwarebytes is not an antivurus program it is an anti malware program and will find much much more than your antivirus will, there is a free version but you can also purchase it for a minmal fee which gives you lifetime protection and will enable it to do auto updates and scheduled scans. I would definitely get and use malwarebytes it is one of the top products we use on the support forums to clean the hardest infections. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Please download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware to your desktop. * Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program. * At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, then click Finish. * If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version. * Once the program has loaded, select Perform full scan, then click Scan. * When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results. * Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.  The log is automatically saved by MBAM and can be viewed by clicking the Logs tab in MBAM. The log can also be found here: C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Malwarebytes\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\Logs\log-date.txt  Copy and Paste the entire report in your next reply. Extra Note: If MBAM encounters a file that is difficult to remove, you will be presented with 1 of 2 prompts, click OK to either and let MBAM proceed with the disinfection process, if asked to restart the computer, please do so immediately. There are free antivirus programs that are available that are just as good as or in some cases better than ones you pay big bucks for, the same companies that give those free also do sell a more full featured version so they are available for sale, I prefer to support companies that will go above and beyond and provide a free version for those who can not afford to pay for a product, they certainly do not have to do that but it is an extremely helpful thing to do, the more people we can keep from getting infected the better off we all are. I personally use AVAST and find it an excellent product. People often try to push the big name products especially when they are making a profit from selling them, installing them and maintaining them. The decision should be a good informed and researched one made by the pc user.

bugsybanks : Finally get back to this . . . . re : "Regarding the change to IMAP, I have 3 e-mail addresses set up through my server on the desktop and all 3 are now POP3 on that computer. Do I delete each account and then recreate it as IMAP? Will I lose the e-mails that have been saved under Local Folders? " One thing . . . my "Local folders" only contain Trash & Outbox. All my other Inboxes, etc. are within separate acct folders. I.E., each other acct. contains an Inbox, Drafts, Sent, etc. - outside of "Local Folders." Anyway, there's a good chance that after you create an IMAP acct., the email that you have already downloaded using POP mail, and deleted from the server - won't show up in the IMAP Inbox. You'd have to import them back in. Just to be safe, I would export all your email first so that you have it as backup. Then make new accts as IMAP. See if everything looks correct, or if you need to import anything from the backup you just made. Finally, delete the POP accts. There is a really handy addon tool for TB : ImportExportTools https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/?src=search (That page looks complicated, but the use of the tool is not) The two different ways to export using that tool are - (and you get to the choices by right clicking on "Inbox" or any other folder) : 1) "Export folder" (w/ or w/o structure) This makes an Mbox file of everything that you export. It makes for just a few simple files that aggregate everything within the respective folders. So you will end up w/ one Inbox file, one Drafts file, etc. "Structure" just means you will keep the nested structure of the folders. The disadvantage is that you can't read them later w/o importing them back first (using ImportExportTools). 2) "Export all Messages" (and choose "eml" format here) This exports each email as a .eml file - and you can identify and read each one separately later after exporting. So if you export 500 emails, you'll get 500 .eml files. You can batch import them though using ImportExportTools. And you can read them just by clicking on them individually. There's no harm in exporting both ways if you like. Just create separate folders so you can keep it all straight. Play around with it a bit until you get the hang of it. For all the people recommending this way to do email or that - this debate has been going on for years. There are advantages and disadvantages to each - it really depends on your needs. I wouldn't say that any one of them is "unusual" as someone commented - what's unusual to one is likely normal to someone else. Personally I use them all, and all for different purposes - no one method seems to work for every purpose. I do use web based email for the most part though. Hope that helped. -Kent This post was edited by kbarb on Mon, Oct 20, 14 at 0:42

My 85yr old Mom does not have a cell phone and signed up for time warner phone last year. She already had them for TV and went from verizon old fashioned copper line to time warner phone. She didn't have long distance and figured for the price now she gets unlimited long distance. I had no clue she was doing this so don't know if they told her about no phone if the power goes out since they don't have battery back up like verizon fios but I told her after the fact and I think she still doesn't understand it and thinks as long as she has an old fashioned phone plugged in and not a cordless one she is fine when power is out, sigh, I try to explain as best I can. She could get a trac phone or something but that would defeat the purose of the savings and one more thing for her to learn that just would not go well. Power seldom goes out in our area unless a very bad storm so no biggie and good neighbor who has fios knows about the situation in case she did need to use a phone in a power outage. If most stuff goes to online tech support gonna be hard for elderly like my Mom that don't have a computer. Heck even most prodcuts today don't come with a paper manual and the manual has to be found online in PDF. Maru