I would never ever have McAfee on my machines again after finally getting rid of it and the mess it made. Personally I use AVAST free and love it. You will need to use the Norton removal tool to get the Norton off your pc before you do the install of the new AV you select. Norton buries itself deep into the pc so can be a job to remove it. Here is a link to Corrine's blog with info about various removal tools and the links to the tools. Antivirus Product Removal Tools Using a program like free REVO uninstaller also does a good job of getting out all the left over bits. NO windows defender is not enough. Are you using the built in windows firewall? I assume since this is a new gateway it is a windows 7? Another free option for AV is the free MSE by Microsoft, I have never used it but many do and like it. avast! Free Antivirus Microsoft Security Essentials IF you have not yet added malwarebytes free then definitely do that and use it weekly to do a scan, above and beyond any AV you install. Also recommend installing spywareblaster, simply have to hit update once a week, no scans to do , just update then hit the enable all protection button and close it, it protects you while surfing. How to download and install Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware application for Windows computers SpywareBlaster be sure you get free.

Mikie I had a trojan on my new laptop. I was a little fluster before I downloaded the shell and I downloaded it or something from Cnet knowing it has a bad reputation. I watched closely for something to uncheck but there was nothing. The rest of the stuff I downloaded from sites I always use so it had to come from Cnet. I had a tool bar of some kind that came right off and the trojan. Malwarebytes found 20 of the pup stuff that malwarebytes did not like. It's clean now

I personally would not pay that kind of money for Norton. I currently use AVAST free and like it, also very good is MSE by microsoft also free. but that decision has to be one you make. should you decide to get rid of Norton be sure you use a program like appremover to fully rid your pc of it before you put on any new AV program. Norton likes to leave a lot of bits and pieces behind. If your Norton has the firewall with it you will either need to turn on the Windows firewall or use another stand alone firewall like zonealarm free. Since you are still running xp sp2 and have not updated to sp3 you are no longer getting critical security updates since it has past it's support life. IF you went with sp3 you would get updates to windows for a few more years. Using AppRemover I just used it yesterday to clean up a friends laptop and it works great for removing both Norton and McAfee.

Jean, 1-Make sure you defragment your hard drive. This is the #1 problem I find with slow computers. This will make it easy: download smart defrag. When you install it, be sure to uncheck on any screen extras it wants to install, and at the end of the installation check "give up my gift". Open Smart Defrag, click the automatically box to defragment your C drive. Tell it to Analyze the hard drive. You can then click the X in the corner and that will minimize it to the bottom right corner of your computer and you can ignore it. It will take a while the first time; after that it runs in the background when the computer is on and you aren't doing anything on it. http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/iobit_smartdefrag.html 2-Download and install CCleaner. It gets rid of tons of fragments that clog your computer. When it is installed, open it and click Analyze. The first time you use it it may take 15 minutes or more to run. It will want you to close your internet browser. When it is done searching, it will give to an option to delete all the junk. Do that.Run it every couple of months. Between these 2 programs you should see a big difference. There are other things that could be done, but I can't really explain them to you this way. http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ccleaner_slim.html Brad