If anybody here could help me with some advice, I'd appreciate it.

Lately, I've been getting crashes when Windows starts*, and something has been
interfering with my web browsing.

Searching with Google or Yahoo never finishes** (it just loads the page for
several minutes, and then quits).  Other functions of Google and Yahoo (ie,
Google Webmaster Tools, or My Yahoo) work fine.

Downloading files in Firefox gets interrupted (it asks me where to save the
file, but never actually saves - or even begins downloading - it).  Downloading
in IE sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.

I get random popup ads and new tabs opened in both IE7 and Firefox 2, most of
them advertising antimalware software (which I've never heard of, and don't
trust).

I *do* have Safari installed (just to try it out), but I haven't tested for
these symptoms in it yet.

I have both AVG Free AV and Antispyware, and ZoneAlarm firewall installed.  I
managed to install Avast last night, and performed a boot-time scan, which
didn't yield any results.

Before I left for work, I left the machine running complete scans from AVG
(antivirus *and* antispyware), and from Avast.  I'll check the results when I
get home.

Has anybody here had a similar experience, and is able to comment?

BTW, the only software I've installed recently (other than Linux... heh) is MS
Silverlight, which I've since uninstalled.

** These work fine in Linux, so I know its something with the machine and not
the network.

* By googling under Linux, I was able to determine that the crashing process
belonged to Nero Scout, something I didn't even have installed (I only
installed Burning ROM, with none of the extras).  Just to be safe, I
uninstalled Nero, but that hasn't changed anything.

....Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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