I recently noticed that my laptop was running a bit slower than usual. That, coupled with random popups that I'd never seen on this computer before, lead me to check the Task Manager. There, I found several instances of "iexplore.exe" would would reappear after I tried ending them. One is consistently using 50k memory, making the computer considerably slower. Is there any way I can find out where the problem is?

You have malware which is using Internet Explorer to display popups.

Yeah, but how can I get rid of it?

Run a virus/malware scan?

Ok, what would be a good one for this?

I use SUPERAntispyware and adaware with vista. You can get them from here: SUPERANTISpyware Adaware Download, install and update them. To run them right click on the desktop icon and select "Run as administrator" and click on "continue" or "allow" when prompted. SUPERAntispyware: click "scan your computer", make sure "perform complete scan" is selected, click "next" and let it complete the scan. Adaware: click "scan now", make sure "full scan" is selected, then click the "scan" button and let it complete the scan. Keep a pad and pen ready and note down what they detect (dont worry about tracking cookies or mru lists). Let the programs fix what they detect. If you continue to have problems you can then let us know what kind (if any) trojan, virus, malware or critical objects were detected. p.s. are you running an antivirus program?

Ah, I've been trying my virus protection software as well as Ad-aware, but this SuperAntiSpyware found more than just cookies. I re-booted my computer and the iexplore.exe processes are gone. Thanks a lot!