I have successfully got the laptop up to speed (no pun intended). At the behest of family I was asked to install avast. Okay I come back here and we then download updated drivers to make the machine faster etc.
The concern is with avast I have the blue bubble in the lower right corner in the tray. periodically when I am perusing the net the screen will freeze and the avast is taking its own sweet time making the decision. Is this the way its supposed to work? Any tips or ideas?

I use avast! Faithfully i have never experienced that situation. Are you positive it is avast! slowing you up. If possible take a screen shot while the bubble is up in the system tray.

Maybe its Mozilla interacting with it?

I use Avast also,sometimes it just does that. It may have been updating it's files or something. If you had some other AV you may need to use a product remover to get rid of it completely....