[Imogen Tate]

My computer is driving me mad lately, it freezes and I keep getting messages saying "The following plug in is unresponsive: either unknown or Norton confidential.
Would you like to stop it? I always say Yes.
A friend has said that he doesn`t like Norton because it is always working in the background and affects ones usage of the computer.
I am no computer expert so would like some advice about this.
Why has this only happened recently?
The other thing that seems to happen a lot is being told that pages are unresponsive.

[Quackers]

Plugins are 3rd party add ons to software, so for example Adobe Flash Player is a plugin to Internet Explorer/Firefox etc. It extends what the software can do out of the box.

To translate it to the real world, a catflap might be a 'plugin' to a door, as in it extends the doors original capability and allows it to handle something additional.

[SnrDev]

Plug ins are additional bits of software that add functionality. It's usual that the browser recognises that it needs a plug in and downloads & installs it, with your permission.

I'm not that au fait with Norton but anecdotally it is a bit of a resource hog, and can be a right pain to uninstall. There are better free AV packages out there. Someone will be along soon to disagree or to point you in the right direction.

[Maxatoria]

Nortons better than what it was but thats not saying much, have a search back for 'best antivirus' and i'm sure you'll find loads of recommendations