Windows Defender comes with your W8 OS which I am giving a shot, if not satisfied with it I will install AVG2014, which I use for years on all 6 of my PC's, and yes to many maleware's is not only over kill but a very bad idea, all you are doing is confusing your entire system. Malewarebytes is enough. Or if you are more puter savy you can add ASC=advanced system care.

Thanks Aputernut. I decided to go ahead and uninstall McAfee, and once I did that Windows Defender became enabled on its own.

Windows Defender looks pretty much the same as Windows Essentials, which I already use on my laptop. I'm really happy with WE because it's so unobtrusive so I think Windows Defender will be really good on W8. I've used AVG in the past, and I prefer Windows Essentials, so I'm stoked about Windows Defender.

For my other question about email on W8, would anyone have any experience with Outlook? The emails that actually make it to the inbox are still vanishing as of today.

You might look online to see if you have the actual email account there & perhaps your missing mails are there ... Outlook.com

Windows 8 has a Mail application in the new modern tiles .

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.outlook.com

Since no malware applications are certified as 100% effective it is commonly recommended here to have several applications available if a need arises. This concept is commonly known as tiered detection.This is done by being certain the malware applications are configured as on-demand rather than real time. On-demand applications will not create any concerns.

I currently have MWB and SAS installed on this W8.1 system with no concerns. My previous system had the two and Spybot S&D, and there too no concerns.

Now do not read this to mean virus protection. There you only need one, and the mere presence of a second could cause concerns.

DA

There's a school of thought that's different from the preceding, which is:

If you use one comprehensive and integrated antivirus/malware system that is active and ever vigilant, it's not necessary to use anything else. Bad sites, intrusions and infection attempts are blocked real-time. The very, very, very vast majority of the time.

DA is right, nothing is 100%. But most people that come to this forum with infection problems aren't using a top rated comprehensive system. Draw whatever conclusion you wish.

The e-mail I use and have used since it hit the internet many years ago is incredimail and after install you can use Outlook and incredimail will set up for you using outlook as default, but all mail will come in incredimail. It's great for creative ppl, nice stationary and kewl notifiers. Easy to use to.

S,

I have my mental crayons out to draw. You hit the nail on the head.

DA

This post was edited by damccoy on Mon, Jan 20, 14 at 18:58

mikie: "You might look online to see if you have the actual email account there & perhaps your missing mails are there ... Outlook.com"

Thanks for the link. Yes, it looks like I do have an account there; but the missing emails aren't there, either - just the one 'welcome' type of email from Outlook.

"Windows 8 has a Mail application in the new modern tiles ."

Yep, I tried accessing that dozens of times; but each time I log in to set up a new account it says I already have an account. And this started before I even opened up the Outlook account. That's all I get from that page as I'm just stuck in a black hole after that. Not literally black, but just the page where it says set up your account, and nothing else - no backing up into the previous page, or going forward - such is Windows 8 - ha.

As far as having the three malware programs; I have all 3 on my laptop and haven't encountered any problems with spyware/malware since installing them a couple of years ago - in combination with MSE. They all seem to work very well together. I put them on my laptop after having a couple of infections. Also, since uninstalling McAfee on W8 earlier today, the internet is now zipping along (knock on wood).

Thanks for your advice everyone.