hi clogheen
i know its annoying of the laptop going slow etc. I going to be honest with ya, that AOL software is a murder on computer memory.
I have a HP laptop, I am from Ireland :) and My Friend in the UK wanted to chat with me on AOL, so I downloaded the AOL software, the AOL 9.0 one and wow, did my laptop go slow!!! It really got to me how slow it was and then the software would be in ur way all the time so I just uninstalled it.
Now as you are an AOL member, you mentioned you are wireless,,, now if you just use the software to browse and check ur email... you can actually do all that without using the software,,, you can actually do that in Internet Explorer.
The AOL software was used before to login to ur account to start the modem bb, but with wireless, its always on broadband now. As a test sometime,, see can you open Internet Explorer and browse the internet without going into the AOL software :) It should work unless something was blocked. If that works, then you dont need the AOL software, therefore uninstall it saving u memory :)
With regards to McAfee, its a killer on memory aswell, I dont know about the message "your computer is not protetcted",, I dont use mcafee for that reason about memory..... I use AVG on www.grisoft.com.
good luck :)