To further reduce the chance of malware, and to eliminate any problems with Internet Explorer being hijacked, you may want to look at
Mozilla or
Opera .
I have both Adaware and Spybot on my machine, and the only issue is that Adaware will pick up on files backed up by Spybot. Spybot also has a function built in to prevent IE's homepage being hijacked and to immunize your computer against many malware programs.
goates