aaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccccccckkkkkk is right. Darn AOL. I'm being nice! They put so many hooks when you install it's ridiculous. (Would love to get my hands on your computer!!!)

How are you getting to explorer? Try from the start menu and see if it still comes up with AOL.

Have you cleared temporary internet files and cookies?
Click on tools, then internet options, then delete cookies, temporary internet files and clear your history files. That will get rid of some junk. If it locks up on you, when you try to delete your temporary internet files, that's because there are a ton of them.

You should run Ad-Aware to get rid of spyware. Also Spybot. Both are shareware.
I posted the links to these before, but here they are.
Adaware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Spybot http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html
Unfortunately, these days most everyone who surfs the net needs to run programs like this to clean out spyware.

Hotfixes are Windows updates!! Do not remove!!!!

This site might help you remove Hotbar. http://www.pchell.com/support/hotbar.shtml

Let's start with this.