Your friend is right. AOL is bloat ware. My suggestion for you is to downgrade to AOL 8.0. I used to use the AOL software but I got so tired of the updates were always more bubbly and bloated and ridiculous. So, I ended up downgrading all the way back to AOL 5.0 which was the last version they made that was made totally for functionality instead of aesthetics.
Try 8.5 which is almost the same thing as 9.0. If that doesn't work for you, my recommendation is to uninstall AOL and reinstall. There is no hope in fixing AOL software. It will only get worse. I hate to be negative but it's just true.