Clean your pc from unwanted things like viruses, spyware, adware and other unwanted things
Viruses, trojans, spyare and adware can cause serious damage to your computer and prevent programs like Messenger from working properly. Aside of that they can be very annoying by for example slowing down your computer and showing unwanted pop-ups they cause a serious risk to your online accounts and any private information on the computer itself. Making sure your PC is clean from any of this garbage is a good way of troubleshooting almost any possible problem that might occur. At this page we will give some general information on how to clean your computer. We will also explain how to keep your windows up-to-date and how to 'defragment' your hard disks.
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Spyware and Adware
Spyware is a small piece of software that collects information about you and your behaviour that it will send to it's maker. This makes it a very serious threat to your privacy. Adware is the little brother of Spyware that mainly does advertising. Some pieces of Adware get as far as showing a pop-up every 5 minutes when you are using your pc! Your computer can be infected very easy, even by just browsing the internet. There are also some programs that install Spyware and/or Adware with them in return for free use of the program.
To clean your pc you can use several very handy programs that will do the cleaning work for you. The two most used programs will be introduced here. They will scan your pc for spyware and adware and remove anything found. The first one is Ad-Aware, if you don't have it yet you can find the latest version here. After installing Ad-Aware run it, click "Start" and "Perform a full system scan". When it's done click next, right click, "select all objects" and click next again to remove them. The second program is called Spybot Search & Destroy. You can download it here. During the intallation it will ask you a few setup questions for settings. When finished have the program perform a scan by clicking the "Check for problems" button. When it's finished click "Fixed selected problems" and close the program. If you want to keep your computer clean and protect your privacy it is advised to run these programs every once in a while.
Windows Updates
Another important thing you should do is keep your Windows up-to-date. To download the latest updates go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com or enable Automatic Updates via the Windows XP Security Center. Critical updates, security updates and service packs will then be downloaded and installed automatically depending on your settings.
Keep your computer running fast and smooth
If you want to keep your computer running fast you should defragment your hard disk(s) on a regular base. To defragment your hard disk first go to "My Computer" that can be found on your desktop, then right-click the hard disk you want to defragment, and click "Properties". On the Tools tab, click "Defragment Now". Click Defragment. This may take a while. Repeat these steps for all your hard disks.
Viruses & Trojans
To protect you and others against viruses you can install a virus scanner, but for most threads your number one important instrument is common sense. Don't just click on any link or open every file that is send to you without making sure it is safe! There are many virus scanners available you can use, for example Norton AntiVirus or McAfee AntiVirus, but a good virus scanner doesn't have to cost you anything, Grisoft offers you a free scanner called AVG that can be downloaded here. Two other examples of scanners that you can download and use for free are AntiVir PersonalEdition and Avast Home Edition.
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