Good grief... Do I need all these applications?

Welcome to Major Geeks!

I don't know what you are referring to.

Are you running AVG8?
Are you running Spybot's Teatimer?
Are you using a paid version of Ad-Aware or the free version?

Spyware Blaster is not a realtime application. You just run it, update it, and apply the protection. Then periodically update it. It only runs when you run it. It is not a scanner. But yes you should use it as it cost you nothing but a little bit of disk space.

Too old and out of date to be that useful.

Don't like it. Never have.

Not a topic for the malware forum but most if not all of these applications are hype and you can cleanup unwanted applications yourself and also defrag yourself. Registry cleaning & defragmenting does not improve performance in any noticeable amount. Even Microsoft has stated this. If you want to play around with services that you think you don't need, post about this in the Software Forum.