Leaderboard

So everything was working fine with my Maxthon 4.9.3.1000. Then I stumbled upon --- "HEY! There's a new Maxthon 4.9.4.2000. I think I'll check it out." I tried it. It appeared to be slow ... inferior to 4.9.3.1000. AND I noticed Adblock Plus was not blocking ads. I checked the settings and it appeared to be very much ON. I just didn't see the usual blocking count down at the bottom of my screen. And I was seeing ads that normally don't show up. Consequently, the full rendering activity of pages take longer before circling indicator on the tabs eventually stops. I then uninstalled 4.9.4.2000 and reinstalled 4.9.3.1000. The slowness went away, but ... Adblock Plus is still not working. So, what's up? What do I need to set, tweak or smack around to get it to work? As before, the settings appear to be very much in the ON state. I have Windows XP SP3 Pro. I have the latest version of avast Free Anti-Virus.