Stilly River Sage I had the same problems as you with AVG 8 b(free): the Link Scanner was really slowing things with Internet Explorer, so I disabled it. Accordingly it now shows as an error in the system tray, so I tend to check that each day just to be sure everything else is OK.

I also opted NOT to have it do a full system scan on a daily basis, which it wanted to do. That also slows things. I'll schedule it in once a week, at my convenience (if you get a free antivirus programme you expect to do a little work and not have everything automatic)

My only remaining problem is that the scheduled automatic updating doesn't seem to kick in as it should ...

I have to say I much prefer the previous version, even if it didn't have spyware detection (I have Spybot in any case). How have they got things so wrong at AVG? Or is it just the case that in attempting to be more and more security conscious we end up with programmes being OVER-cautious?