what's going on with my laptop computer?
 

About two weeks ago my laptop started acting funny, seemed slower and it was messing up some applications. I have spy sweeper brand software along with CA virus protection and I use Windows Defender also. When I run spy sweeper I always get 10-20 items to be quarantined. Lately when I power up the computer and click on the Internet Explorer shortcut it loads fine but some of the toolbar is missing:mad: For instance I have many " favorites " stored but the favorites icon is missing lately. If I restore my system to 8/7/08 for example the favorites icon reappears:confused: I have restored back to 8/7 twice this week and it works for a few days and then the favorites icon disappears again. I run my virus program once a week, the spy sweeper almost daily and Defender 2-3 times a month. What's going on?SmileWavy

I'd stop using MS products. Start your Switch by using Firefox instead of IE.

Turn off either CA or Defender, you don't need to run both since both just eat up CPU cycles and RAM. In fact I wouldn't use either of those, instead I'd run Avira, which is free and isn't a resource hog. Instead of Spy Sweeper I would use AdAware once a week.

If you can't get things fixed and running smoothly, I'd save the favs on a thumb drive and do a clean install.

Mainly, be careful what you download, click on and open. Use web based email that scan for viruses before it gets to you.

Last but not least, cut down on the porn and peer2peer stuff :P

Edit: Yea use Firefox too, IE is a giant hunk of garbage.

I took your advice and downloaded Firefox,AdAware and Avira. I made Firefox my home page I like the simplicity of the look. I was going to remove Internet Explorer but received a message that some programs might not run properly if removed like printers etc. has anyone had that issue? How often do you run the AdAware and Avira? Thanks for the help.

Avira is great but the free version does not protect your incoming email. Malwarebytes is a free download that will clean up any existing issues. It sounds like there are some.

The computer is running much better:D I got rid of the CA anti virus and the Spy Sweeper. I've run the new Virus scan and it detected 6 viruses:o I ran the adware and it found 44 suspect items:( The malware didn't find anything:confused: Hopefully this will continue to be a good news story. Thanks for all your help guysSmileWavy