I have this ritual I run through from time to time. Every now and then, my computers suddenly starts running more slowly. Web pages are slower, folders take forever to open, and games are slow. So first I run Adaware, to clear all the spyware and junk from my machine, but that doesn't work. Next I find out what processes are running, do some Googling, and find out what they all are. Nothing out of the ordinary is found. Then I do a full virus scan, finding no viruses on my machine. Next I delete any software I don't use. It's still slow. Then I look for recently installed features that might be impacting performance (such as the Sun Java Runtime). Seems like a good bet, but it doesn't change anything. Finally I close Internet Explorer and try again. So apparently, Internet Explorer has been slowing down my machine for about a week. That's about how long it's been since I patched my machine with the latest security update from Microsoft. So what, now it's so secure it's degrading performance?