hereami

Hi! In the past couple of months my computer has gotten quite slow (5+ minutes to start up), and in the past week or so has begun freezing up many times a day. I've defragged it, run a full system scan with McAfee and with Active Virus Shield, and scanned for spyware both with Ad-Aware SE and with Spybot. Still, it keeps hanging up. Recently I installed Vidalia with Tor and Privoxy to get anonymous web surfing. Could that be causing the problems? I've tried uninstalling and re-installing the package, but with no improvement. I'm running Windows XP w/SP2 on a Sony Vaio with Pentium M and 1 gig of RAM. Up until recently I've had no problems with speed or crashes. Any ideas? I'm lost! Thanks!

Glaswegian

Hi

If that was when your problems started, then chances are those progs are causing some kind of issue. Have you tried to uninstall them and see if that helps? Are there any settings that perhaps need some adjustment? I'm not familiar with them so I can' help you with that.

hereami

Hey I think I may have figured out my problem. I have McAfee System Guard, but had disabled the Virus scan portion because I started using Active Virus Shield instead. That hadn't seemed to be a problem, but since I've been having hanging problems I decided to just uninstall the Virus Scan portion completely. I've used the machine about an hour now since then and haven't had it hang yet. :) :) I installed Spy-Bot w/Teatimer. Do I really need to have the McAfee Firewall also? If I can get rid of McAfee, I'd love it (not fond of the constant requests to upgrade), but don't want to leave things vulnerable either. I think if I could delete that it'd free up more system resources as well. Thanks!

Glaswegian

Hi

Yes, 2 AVs can cause problems. You do need a firewall - have a look here for some general tips and suggestions.

PC Safety and Security--What Do I Need?

hereami

Thanks for the advice. I'll leave McAfee Firewall installed - didn't realize Windows one was so bad. I've got Spybot Resident with Teatimer already installed. Should I run Spyware Blaster also or is that redundant? You recommended Blaster but didn't mention whether Spybot's Resident function was any good. Two AV's is bad - does the same go for anti-spyware? I like Spybot because the Teatimer function alerts me to attempted registry changes. Thanks for the help!

Glaswegian

Hi

Spybot and Ad-Aware are stand alone scanners - they do not provide real time scanning, so you can have as many as you like. Spywareblaster and Spywareguard are small programmes that will provide real time protection - they will not interfere with your AV. SB Tea Timer will not interfere either and is also good protection.