I've been running AVG Free for years on XP, no problem. Yesterday I installed MalwareBytes and this morning AVG loaded but didn't run. Actually, neither did MalwareBytes. I uninstalled MalwareBytes, rebooted and lo and behold, AVG works now just like it used to. Conclusion: MalwareBytes is a pile of donkey's doo doos. I don't care how good it may be at removing malware if it conflicts with other programs. Buh-bye MalwareBytes!

My answer is that every pc should have malwarebytes on it, it catches more than most any other malware scanner out there. It should not be slowing you down however because it is an on demand scanner and is only using resources when you are actually running the manual scan. Do you mean it becomes slow when you are running a scan or it is always slow? You might try doing an uninstall of it then a re-install. but since it only comes on and uses resources when you actually run a scan with it I can not see why it would have any impact at all on the pc. It could be just coincidental that it slowed at that time could be something else contributing, I would look at the task manager and see what seems to be using the most CPU resources.

Dennis, thanks for a well laid out list of problems. It does help those who feel they can see some or all of your problems. AVG is by far the most popular free anti virus and I doubt that is your issue. I would not remove that one. Spyware Doctor I know nothing about. If you have the original CD or the download stored on your computer you could remove it entirely using the Add/Remove and see if that helps at all. Superantispyware and or Malwarebytes could be alternatives to trying Spybot Search & Destroy. If you use Spybot S&D be sure it is in fact that program and not a sound alike rogue program. Have you ran any cleaners at all? Not registry cleaners but the Disk cleanup in the Accessories/System Tools folder of XP. Try that and a defrag, it will help modestly. Do you have Google or Yahoo toolbars and are they allowed to run in the background? The Google Toolbar has either 3 or 4 entries in your Startup and using your resources. Click Start click Run type msconfig click OK click the Startup tab Now check each of these items and decide if they do in fact need to run. Google each entry before deciding to stop one because if you stop the wrong ones the computer may not start again. If you stop any you need to reboot. During the reboot you will get a dire warning, do not be alarmed, place a check mark not to see it again and continue the booting.

Sue, I just checked on your referral. I am going to try to remember to check how many new "fingerprints" are added just to see how much has changed. From v.02 to v.04 there has been an addition of 120 fingerprints. DA