Q: Anti Virus

I have found that the free version of Sophos is excellent. It does not cause any sort of noticeable drop in speed of the machine, and it has come in handy on a few occasions. There is mac malware out there and unfortunately, the tools that come with macs don't entirely cut it. I'm not one of those paranoid, balls-to-the-wall antivirus users, but since Sophos really just runs nicely in the background and does offer very good protection, and is free, there's not much reason not to have it.

http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-ed ition.aspx

Thanks for your encouragement.

I Have not installed Java.

does JavaScript automatically update? I never knew what it actually did.

Thanks for the tip re Adblock.

You have been very helpful. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge in plain English.

Thanks cmel42591 for the suggestion.

As with most anti virus surrounding the Mac platform there is a lot of uncertainty, (perhaps a knee jerk reaction). You were running XP so I can’t vouch for that. Trusteer has been discussed here before but the feeling was that it caused mores problems than it solved.

JavaScript is built into all web browsers. If it requires an update, it'll be included with any other updates for the browser you're using.

Okay. Thanks. Will search it out

Thanks - I thought so, but nice to be sure.