I have installed, used and recommended the following programs. Uninstall all other Anti-virus programs, spyware hunters etc. Download and install the following (all free, by the way) 1. AVG Free Antivirus 2. Lavasoft Adaware (Personal edition-free) 3. Spybot Search and Destroy 4. Spyware Blaster (that name only..no variations) 5. Crap Cleaner 6. A-squared 7. System Security Suite (that name only..no variations) 8. Index.dat suite Use these..you will have no problems. Hope this helps.. txKen

Hi, libbyliz. Your speeds sound amazing. I'm on cable too and my tests are half that. But everything works instantly so not sure it makes any difference, unless you're into gaming. (No matter the speed, it doesn't make my reading or typing any faster.) If you're trying to cut your cable bill, you just might want to ask if they have a lower tier you could try. I read about RR Light on a local computer forum and called to ask about it. (Best kept secret in town, not even any mention of it on their website.) They said it was very slow--not much better than dialup. But I'd read it was good, so I asked to try it with the understanding I could switch right back. They made the switch and the first place I checked was the Kitchen Forum Gallery and purposely picked one that said lots of pics. There was the slightest difference. Next tried U-Tube and still fine. Internet part of bill went from $35 to $15/mo. and still getting speeds in the 720-740kbps range. Plenty fast for my needs and love the price. YMMV as each franchise sets their own prices. Sandy

How do you get yourself into these problems? Because you have a problem and are trying to fix it rather than ignore it or dump your problem on someone else. I find that to be very admirable. The good thing about this is you will be learning a lot in the process of getting things back on track. The down side is it is going to take a little bit of time if we do it here. Your are very lucky because there is a lot of experience her and, super people willing to help. There should be no fear of what to do with what fix-it finds if you decide to go that route. They offer several bits of information as to what found information does, and a suggestion of what you should let fix-it do, to fix your computer. You can undo anything fix-it does, with the click of a button. If you go to do anything that will screw things up, fix-it will tell you. If anything in any of the steps does not agree with what you see on the screen, don't continue and get back to us and let us know what the discrepancy is. There are several reasons why you might not be getting to the desk top you are used to and rather than a bunch of mumbo jumbo and jargon, we'll start with the simplest reason first. From what I gather at this point, you have multiple issues that are not necessarily "Computer Problems". To best help you get on track using a forum like this, I suggest we take one issue at a time. There are several ways to skin a cat so I am going to use what I know will get you to where you want to be. Of course, if you know a faster way that works for you, no problem, as long as we both get to where we want to be. We don't know what you know so if we describe a step that you well know, it is not to insult your intelligence or belittle you, it's just to get you where you need to be in a step by step manner. 1....The folder that YOU created named "desk top", rename it to "My Icons" and do so without the start and end quotes. The folder you created, from what you indicated here, has a space between the words "desk" and "top". That's the one you want to rename. 2....Click on the START button at the bottom left of you computer screen. Look for "My Computer" and click on that. 3....RIGHT click Local Drive (C:) In the left column at the top, you should see "Desktop" with no space between desk and top. Looking down a little further, you should see C: with a plus next to it. Click on that plus. When it expands, look down the list and you should see the renamed directory "My Icons" that you did previously. Click on that and in the right column, everything you moved should be listed there. 4....At the top of this window click on EDIT and when the menu drops down, click on SELECT ALL. Everything in the right column should become highlighted, usually in blue. 5....Take your mouse pointer over to the highlighted column click down on the LEFT mouse button and HOLD IT DOWN. While holding it down, drag everything over to the left column and up to the "DESKTOP", at the top of the left column. You will see the DESKTOP change color when you are on it and at that point, let up on the mouse button. Make sure you are on the DESKTOP name and that it highlights because if you don't, you may move everything into another directory, compounding the issue!!! Everything should now be back the way it was before you moved your desk top. If everything is back to what you are used to, we'll take the next step. My particular next step is going to ask for a list of everything in the task manager under the tab "PROCESSES". Do a "Ctrl" "Alt" "Delete". When the task manager pops up, click on the "Processes" tab. After you enter this tab, hover your pointer over the words "User Name". This will be the name of one of the columns. You have to hover over the actual words. Left click that and you will see everything organize itself. If you could then get us a list as it appears on your screen, we can work on the next steps. I have to go on an errand so it might be some time before I get back to you, I live in a rural area. Someone else here may pick up where I left off, I have no problem with that. The beauty of this particular forum is many knowledgeable people willing to help.

It's a very good article. Go back and read it again, shee. Essentially, Apple finds out about these things just about as soon as the AV companies most of the time. Yes, there is Mac malware, but the great majority of it works by fooling you into installing it. Never click a link in an email, unless it's something you started, like if you requested a password reset. Otherwise, if you get an email that seems to come from, say, your bank, go to their site and use the contact options there instead of the link in the email. Yes, flash is bad news. It's no longer included in the OS, and in these days when most people get to the web via their phones (no flash there), it's not so necessary, either, although there are apps which require it, like Adobe products. But if you have flash, you will always get the flash version instead of the html5 version of videos, etc Flash is baked into chrome. If you use chrome, you are going to have flash as part of it, in addition to everything you do in your browser being sent to google.