Lea,
With all the other hoops you are being asked to jump through it would be interesting to check when Windows Update has been checking for updates the next few days. Start, All Programs, Windows update will show you the last time windows checked by time and date. That doesn't mean it made the update at that time since it is on the BITS download system which only downloads when nothing else is going on, pauses if there is, and resumes the next time the pc is on. Defender, which should be off since you have McAfee, and a few other windows programs update the same way.
What home page do you use in your browser?
A few of the news channels you mentioned checking as well as the Hughes home page have way too many large changing pictures and little videos running on them these days for limited broadband.
Even the home page of Microsoft Bing has far too many images. If you leave any of these open in a tab while looking at others or nothing there is a lot of usage. A search engine page that is very plain and mostly text is the way to go. They are getting hard to find as Google Search is adding more junk all the time.
What email program do you use? Some of them check for new mail every 15 minutes but some almost instantly whenever they are open. Send yourself an email and see how long it takes to arrive back in your inbox with the program open.
McAffee should have a History Log and/or a Performance graph that will show you everytime something tries to come through it. You will be amazed at the activity that goes on in the background.
It should tell you each event and when it happened. If you have some of the common malware trying to gain access it may block it but there will be activity ( usage) every few seconds. Actor PID is a typical one. You can look it up on the web and see how much trouble it has been for many folks that are completely unaware it is trying to mess with their computer.
We all think nothing has changed in the way we browse and use our computers but the sites we browse have become more and more cluttered every year and the size and frequency of updates to windows and other software we have installed has become ridiculous, at least in my opinion.
Ron
