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Archive for the ‘Optimization’ Category
Tips For Virus And Spyware Removal
If you’ve ever experienced a virus or spyware on your computer, you know how painful it can be. Your computer slows to a crawl. Random advertisements pop-up on your screen. Weird things happen, and as time goes by, the problems only grow worse.
Here are a few simple steps that will help you get your computer back under control.
1) Restart your computer in Safe Mode with Networking. Tap F8 when you first turn on your computer for the Advanced Startup Menu. More in-depth instructions can be found here. This special mode allows you to access the internet, but also prevents most viruses and spyware from being able to run, making it a lot easier to remove them.
2) To remove a virus, download Malwarebytes, install and update, and then run a full scan. It’s important to run a second scan with SUPERAntiSpyware to remove any remaining traces of the virus and/or spyware.
For future protection, if you don’t already have a commercial antivirus, consider installing the free version of Avast Free Antivirus. It’s easy to use, provides excellent protection, and is free for non-commercial use!
Avast 5, Free Anti-Virus Released
A new version of my favorite free Anti-Virus, Avast Home Edition, was released last week. Improvements include a simpler interface, easier registration, and a new, faster, scanning engine.
For the highest level of protection, and for business use, I recommend Norton or Kaspersky, but Avast is a fantastic money-saving alternative that’s worth a look.
Note: Before installing Avast, you’ll want to uninstall any other real-time Anti-Virus software you may have installed to prevent a conflict.
Optimize Performance by Automatically Defragging on Idle
Hard drive speed is one of the biggest performance bottlenecks for computers today. File fragmentation slows things further if left unchecked.
Until recently, I rarely recommended defragging because the difficulty and time required for running manual scans, but now I recommend Smart Defrag. It’ll automatically defragment your hard drive when it’s idle. And if you’re going to be away from your computer for a few hours, running a ‘Fast Optimize’ will help as well.
So, what is defragging anyway? If you’ve ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book, you know that at the end of each page you are presented with a couple of choices, and you continue reading by flipping to the page for that choice. Likewise, when files are fragmented, your hard drive has to skip forward and backward to finish reading a file, which slows down performance. Defragging fixes this problem by moving files so that they can be read sequentially. It also optimizes performance by placing the most frequently used files first on the hard drive.
Optimizing performance with CCleaner
CCleaner is a free, nifty program that I frequently use for computer tune-ups. I use it primarily for its registry cleaner, which you can see in the screenshot below.
Cleaning the registry is especially helpful for computers that have had Windows installed a while. As programs are installed and uninstalled, unnecessary junk builds up over time, slowing performance, occasionally causing other problems.
To run the registry cleaner, start CCleaner, click on the registry icon on the left, click on ‘Scan for Issues’, and finally click ‘Fix selected issues’.
Computer slowing down?
Your operating system and the software you’ve installed on your computer will slow your computer down over time. It’s unavoidable at a certain level, but there are things you can do to limit the impact. Every time you install a program, you’re demanding more from your computer, and the effect accumulates over time, so use discernment in what you install.
Your computer will certainly slow down if you get a virus or spyware on your computer. If you don’t have an up-to-date antivirus and antispyware program, consider installing the free version of Avast Home.
If your computer is protected from viruses and spyware, and it’s still running slow, here are a couple of things you can do to speed things up. First, go to the Control Panel (Click Start -> Control Panel), and click “Add or Remove Programs” or in Windows Vista click “Programs and Features”. Uninstall all of the applications that you don’t need and restart your computer.
If your computer is running slow, you probably have a lot of programs automatically starting themselves when you turn on your computer. You can speed up your computer by turning off automatic startup for most of them. The only programs that really need to startup with your computer are applications for core functionality and protection, such as drivers and antivirus software. To see what applications are currently starting up when you turn on your computer, and to turn some of them off, you can use the Microsoft Configuration Utility. Here’s a tutorial with screenshots.