The spam mail was killing me, and I did install and run the suggested spyware software. But after some time I simply became fed up. Incidentally, I wasn't too happy about Microsoft Word, either.
So last night I downloaded the Avant browser. This thing is 'da bomb.' It's very fast at startup, refresh and surfing, but uses a very small hard drive footprint. One can tab surf and it has all the functionality (at least that I need) that Internet Explorer has. And it has true pop up blocking.
Then, to deal with my word processing software, I downloaded AbiWord version 2. It's straightforward and simple w/p software with none of the bells and whistles of Word. Yes, it doesn't have an auto spell checker like Word, but I figure for a nominal fee, Spell Catcher software can rectify that if I find I really need to automatically capitilize new sentences. There's also a nice host of plug-ins for AbiWord, so that one can transfer their document into Word for Windows, Mac and even Linux.
In all, these two softwares offer as much functionality as I.E. and Word. The best part is they're free.
If anyone's interested, here's the link for Avant Browser:
http://www.avantbrowser.com/
and AbiWord
http://www.abisource.com/
