Sluggish computer & AntiVirus question

Okay first, lately my computer is running like absolute crap.
It's sluggish and slow, in everything I do, from opening IE, to going back to the desktop to clicking between windows, even when I have barely ANY actual applications running. My system has a Pentium 4 CPU 2.40Ghz and 256MB RAM, I thought that was FAIRLY good, why is it having so much trouble doing the simplest tasks?

Also, I use Norton AntiVirus 2003 but my virus definitions has expired. I can upgrade that or get Internet Security 2005. Or play.com has AntiVirus 2005, should I just get this? It only has Internet Security 2004, what's the difference between anti virus and internet security? This is the site I'm looking at... http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page...hstring=norton

Hope someone can help ;__;

Edit - Oh another thing, in the address bar of internet explorer, when you click on the little arrow you get a drop down box of addresses, well mine seems to choose to remember a few addresses here but not all, and some I'd rather it didn't remember, how can I get rid of them? I tried emptying my temporary internet folder but that didn't do it.

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It's sluggish and slow, in everything I do, from opening IE, to going back to the desktop to clicking between windows, even when I have barely ANY actual applications running. My system has a Pentium 4 CPU 2.40Ghz and 256MB RAM, I thought that was FAIRLY good, why is it having so much trouble doing the simplest tasks?

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Open Task Manager (Shift+Ctrl+Esc) and look on the processes tab and see if there's anything in the list using a large amount of CPU - that'll probably be the culprit slowing everything down for you if it is a program causing this.

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Edit - Oh another thing, in the address bar of internet explorer, when you click on the little arrow you get a drop down box of addresses, well mine seems to choose to remember a few addresses here but not all, and some I'd rather it didn't remember, how can I get rid of them? I tried emptying my temporary internet folder but that didn't do it.

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Try clearing the history as well, and/or setting it to 0 days to wipe those.

To remove the list of recent sites you have visited, you could clear the browser history...however, that would completely remove the list of any sites you had visited.

First off, 256MB of RAM is not exceptionally high for windows XP. I'm sure you would see better performance if you had 512MB or more. (512MB is a comfortable amount)

You should check Norton antivirus autoprotect and make sure it is in Smart Scan mode, not Comprehensive file scanning mode. That should improve the speed of you computer a little bit.

First thing is, DON'T BUY NORTON 2005!! It's a load of rubbish. It slows your PC down to a crawl, can't remove half the viruses/spyware it detects, it can also screw up your system when you install it. Trust me i've seen enough PC's over the last 18 months that are f***ed because of Norton. I'd suggest you get McAfee Internet Security.

As for your system running slow. If your running WinXP with 256mb RAM then things will be slow, especially with an antivirus program running all the time.

I'd suggest your clear out your startup using msconfig. (Goto Start > Run > and type msconfig. Click on the Startup tab and clear out some things.) I'd also do a check for Spyware/viruses and de-frag your hard drive. If things are still slow after that you may need to re-install Windows.

As for the IE problem, I can't help. However I will suggest that you switch to Firefox as it's a better browser. :p

I ran XP Home comfortably on a machine much slower than that. I'm almost positive spyware is the problem here. The usual regiment of Spybot + Adaware would be great.

Many commercial virus scanners, also, are computer hogs. You can't turn them off without the task manager and they're always nagging you. Unfortunately, they do the job the best, and the only free one I can think of is slow and has no active scanner.

Hopefully the spyware scan will hope.

I personally use AVG for anti-virus it is all that I really need. but anyways, yeah sounds like you may have some spy-ware.. that or you just installed WAY too much on the poor thing.(or something is just hogging memory).

And for IE.. ditch it... I don't care what else you use, but any computer I fix I get rid of IE.. and you know what it lives much longer then with IE.. so I don't like IE. I personally use Opera over Firefox.. didn't like firefox much when I tried.. go out and try new browsers and see what you like.

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Originally Posted by ShunNakamura

I personally use AVG for anti-virus it is all that I really need. but anyways, yeah sounds like you may have some spy-ware.. that or you just installed WAY too much on the poor thing.(or something is just hogging memory).

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I used to adore AVG, but they've discontinued support for pre-version 7 copies and version 7 is only a 15 day trial. I ditched it.

AVG was very good. For the love of all that is holy, don't get McAfee.

My avg doesn't seem to be a trial? and it's the free editionX.x;;

(maybe I'm not reading closely enough)

Thanks everyone. I think I'll check for spyware first, and consider getting some more memory. The anti virus thing confuses me. xD I haven't updated it for a month or so, I hope I didn't infect any viruses cos of that =/ It's so expensive though, so I wanna make sure I choose the best thing...And I like my IE, although I have Firefox too, but I use what I'm used to. ^^

Stop using Internet Explorer, problem fixed.

Use Firefox or something. Much better.

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Originally Posted by Xander

And I like my IE, although I have Firefox too, but I use what I'm used to. ^^

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I don't know how to help you, but it sounds like you might have an assload of spyware and viruses. The same thing happened to my computer. It has 512 MB ram and a pentium somethingdecent. Turns out I had over 76 thousand spywares and over 100,000-170,000 viruses. (Can't remember which number it was). It was running pretty sluggish... Maybe you should get that checked out?

Oh yeah, whenever I would run Norton it would slow the thing down almost to a complete stop, and my virus protection had also expired.

I run Norton 2005 and a few other anti-virus / spyware / internet security programs, and I never come across anything that's threatening my computer. I also make it a point never to use Internet Explorer, because when I do I notice a crap load of stuff mysteriously appears on my computer from it.

One of the main reasons that Norton seems so slow for many is because its "Comprehensive file scanning" mode is enabled by default, while McAfee's is not. Simply setting norton to "smart scan" greatly improves speed.

I ran spybot and found 81 items, then adaware and found 18 more xD
And I turned off that comprehensive thing. It seems to be a bit better already. =) I still don't get the different between Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus? Won't just the antivirus program be enough to get?

I assume Internet Security would give firewall-type protection of some sort, from the name, which I don't expect any plain anti-virus software to do :p

Norton Anitvirus is Just Antivirus software.

Internet Security contains Antivirus, Firewall, Spam Shredder and some other programs.

You'd be better of getting an Internet Security package as you'll get alot more for your money.