Here are some quick pointers on cleaning up that spyware and other junk running on your computer that you really didn't ask for. Try running [url=http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=home]Spybot Search & Destroy[/url] to find all those nasty little pieces of spyware that are wasting your computer resources to track your surfing for somebody else's business. Another popular tool that's a little more user-friendly but a little less aggressive (in my opinion) is [url=http://www.lavasoft.de/]LavaSoft AdAware[/url]. Both of these can be used for free by an individual, but Spybot accepts donations and AdAware has both a free and a paid version.
Once you've rid yourself of those, you can look at the tasks you still have running by pressing ctrl-alt-delete. This will show you all the processes that are running on your coputer. There's a list maintained at [url=http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm]Answers that Work[/url]. This list will help you figure out what processes are running, and if you want them running.