for the past week I am getting all types of pop ups in the middle of ebay searching and all. sometimes they even freeze up this old dinosaur I'm on. I have done scans and defrags but nothing helps. they all say internet explorer on them. Is windows (microsoft) sending them ?? DAVE

Spyware, try downloading Adaware SE from Lavasoft and run it. You can also try Spy Bot Search and Destroy and CW shredder. The 3 work pretty well at emoving spyware. What O/S are you running?