I guess. As far as being smart, I usually was using spybot which would alert me when surfing if something was trying to add something. And I "think" I am smart about how I surf, but who knows. I sometimes do things without thinking them out. Another example of me making rash decisions is that I bought this computer instead of keeping my old one which seems as fast as this new one so far. I was panicky it was about to die though and had already replaced the power supply, but I probably should have bought a new hard drive and paid much less than this. Now I go back and forth day after day on whether to return this computer I spent so long putting my stuff on. lol
Man this security software is just flat a pain. As stated in my other thread it messed up javascript in IE due to a phishing filter in mcafee. Now my IM sessions were slow with my IMs hanging before sending, so I figure it's the "scan IMs" setting in mcafee. I am going to end up turning everything off one step at a time at this rate! Now it makes me wonder if the firewall is causing an issue too. Sigh.
I got this computer to be faster, not to be slower than my old one due to scans. lol Although I have heard of people getting IM viruses before.
edit: wow, now after disabling that it still was hanging. If I don't figure all of this out then I paid $900 for a worse setup than my old computer. This is getting ridiculous. I know I should send it back, but it would be much easier to keep it and I THOUGHT it would end up being much better.