[tatemze]

I've read through alot of the threads on here but alot of it goes over my head. I've downloaded avast as it was mentioned as being much better than the norton I was was running. I just wanted to know if theres anything else I should have to make sure my laptop is protected. I dont really have any major problems except that when I click on the internet icon and the window comes up, nothing will happen for ages unless i move the mouse, its like moving the mouse reminds it that its supposed to be doing something. Also I have to click the shutdown button a few times before it does anything and its generally quite slow. I dont want to add any other programs and make things worse because i dont know what I'm doing, or I've downloaded programs that are incompatible. I've no idea what does what, spyware, malware, and programs against etc. I have windows vista home premium 32bit it that makes any difference to anything. Thankyou soo much to anyone that helps, I just have no idea when left to my own devices.

[Jeff in MI]

Have you disabled or uninstalled Nortons before running Avast?
Norton is a tremendous resource hog by itself, running another anti virus with it will drag your system down even further.
If they're both running, that may be the problem.

[tatemze]

yep, norton has been disabled, i was having the problems listed before I instlled avast

[lunarlander]

Avast is an antivirus, you need something to address spyware. SpyBot S&D is a good free one, available here:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html