What is Microsoft Silverlight and why do I need it?

Thanks for your info and input I did install Opera already but I am running Windows 8.1 on an ASUS X55c and I just upgraded memory from 6 to 8 GB and this thing is running incredible!!! I bought at a pawn shop with windows 7 basic and was filled with viruses spyware etc. I have been using IOLO's System Mechanic Professional for over 12 years now and it is the best utility software around. Been ranked #1 for last 8 years. You can download a 30 day fully functional trial version and check out all the features. It is bundled with extra software in the Pro version called System Shield and has a tool to block whatever you configure it for. If you already have anti-virus software then you just can't download System Shield, all other components will be installed. When I got this PC I used Drive Scrubber, and it wipes the HD completely using government standard coding and you can choose how many over-writes to do. I chose 5 times to re-assure I got rid of everything, I did a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate, then got my free upgrades to 8 then 8.1, which the later added the start menu on desktop and I configured it to start up on desktop just like all other older versions of windows. Well I would definitely give it a shot and try out SMP. The link is http://www.iolo.com/downloads/download-system-mechanic-pro/. If you do like it you can get the CD version at Best Buy or Walmart for $40 and annual renewal for $20. Not sure about Norton and others renewal price but I am pretty sure Norton MacAfee Kaspersky and so on are more expensive like $60 I think... AND they don't have any of the features you get with this software. Hope this helps and let me know if you tried SMP and how you liked it... Thanks, Dave

Yea, I don't like Google either...they are into too much of our computing as it is.

Glad to see that you weren't "on something" and it was just a glitch.

Another alternative to Chrome and IE is Opera.. and there are a few others as well, but this is the most common besides the other three e.g. google's Chrome, IE and FF.

I am using "Pale Moon" and it is kinda like "old school" firefox.  I personally haven't used IE since ver 4 or 5.

If you are serious about giving Linux a try then, I have a test for you, actually more of a questionnaire than a test..but they call it a test..they ask questions like "have you ever run Linux before" and depending on the answers you give, it recomends a certain distro, or group of distros. So, you just answer simple questions, and click next (you may have to scroll down to see the next button)

Edit:  The test is here>http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php?firsttime=true

Because I'm a linux newbe it recommended (for me) Linux Mint. L really like Mint...With the KDE desktop it feels a lot like Win7 to me (with the obvious Linux differences though)

I'm not ready to completely ditch MS just yet, but I'm getting closer every day.

There are free office programs for Linux and if you want to try them BEFORE you try Linux, you can try http://www.libreoffice.org/  and another free one is http://www.free-office.org/

There are also some good free email clients also like "thunderbird" which has a layout similar to Outlook Express.

Hope this helps, and I hope you have a great day.

first off I was NOT drunk I do not drink. Sorry as I look at it, it does look that way but I had to disable mouse pad when external mouse is attached. That's why some things look all out of whack... It kept happening to me when typing, my palm hits mouse and places the cursor somewhere else in paragraph. I respect your opinion, but when I downloaded Firefox I DID get a lot of spyware and even a rootkit, which I had to go into registry to completely remove. That was just my opinion on browsers. And I don't like Google as you don't like Microsoft, see we both have our own preferences and opinions. Google just collects too much personal data, and I didn't like the facet after the first 3 add-ons installed on Firefox I had to do virus removal procedures and I also didn't like the whole set up of that browser... Like I said before I guess it is just individual preferences. Sorry about the first reply, when I look at it I would have thought " hey this guy was messed up on something" LOL... I use outlook for my business contacts and more, so I have to keep IE but I will also try some of the things you mentioned like LINUX... WOT is a great tool and since I don't use Firefox I didn't know it was out there before IE. Well just a thank you for bringing all to my attention especially that messed up reply I sent you, but I did go into control panel and set the mouse properties to shut off pad because 99% of the time I have an external mouse attached.... Thanks again and have a great day!!!