I haven't been running the MS antispyware. It goobered up things on Comcast for me. What I downloaded today was recommended by Microsoft.
And remember, we essentially have five users on this one PC, so we're all over the place. And when wife's sister is here, she's on her AOL account.
I suppose! So I shouldn't wonder if you are just imagining things? Like UFO abductions?
Have you got Spybot S&D? It has a protection that runs in the background and prevents a ton of that bad stuff. If you do, make sure the "immunizations" are up to date.
Anti-virus doesn't usually protect you from spyware, and while Ad-aware is great, it has no proactive protection, so I use all three, plus MS antispyware. I let the MS one run at night, Norton once a week, and run the spysweepers when I feel like it, a couple times a month.