Why does everyone consider reformatting such a drastic measure? Damn I used to do it every couple of months just to get rid of crap and extra microshit products. Adaware does exactly what it says, catches "ad-ware" not "spy-ware". Omun sounds like he knows what he's talking about, I would take him serious. As far as being on dialup/broadband the only difference is how fast you dl the stupid crap. Use as little microshit products as possible as they are full of loop holes, download a new HOSTS file to block popups, and make sure to run windows update to fill any gaps. Spy-bot is a decent program to run, and I'm sure there are many more out there....