This page is designed to help you better understand how to keep your computer clean, maintained and secure. Remember that any changes you make to your systems are AT YOUR OWN RISK! I offer NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED regarding the information contained here. If you need help regarding cleaning, securing, and/or maintaining your computer systems, please don't hesitate to call.
Perhaps the most important thing to realize about keeping your system protected is keeping it up to date. If you do not keep your software up to date, then you run the risk of malicious software taking advantage of these vulnerabilities and causing problems.
The first item you want to check for is virus protection. It does you little good to have anti-virus software if it's not up to date. It's basically wasting resources. Many companies offer virus protection, but the one which offers the best value is probably Grisoft's AVG Anti-Virus. AVG Anti-Virus is better than other anti-virus programs primarily because it takes less resources than many of the others. It has also been found to remove viruses that other anti-virus programs have missed. If you have the full McAfee Security Suite, you may have over a dozen McAfee programs running on your computer, many of which you probably don't use. AVG Anti-Virus is available for free for personal use at http://free.avg.com.
In addition to the virus category of problems, there are also problematic programs that fall under the spyware and adware categories. All these programs are often typically known as malware, which is another word for malicious software. Many anti-virus programs also protect against these types of problems including AVG Anti-Virus 8.0. For added protection for Windows XP, you may want to download Microsoft's Windows Defender for free. If you have Windows Vista, then you already have Windows Defender installed.
Perhaps the most important thing to realize about keeping your system protected is keeping it up to date. If you do not keep your software up to date, then you run the risk of malicious software taking advantage of these vulnerabilities and causing problems.
The first item you want to check for is virus protection. It does you little good to have anti-virus software if it's not up to date. It's basically wasting resources. Many companies offer virus protection, but the one which offers the best value is probably Grisoft's AVG Anti-Virus. AVG Anti-Virus is better than other anti-virus programs primarily because it takes less resources than many of the others. It has also been found to remove viruses that other anti-virus programs have missed. If you have the full McAfee Security Suite, you may have over a dozen McAfee programs running on your computer, many of which you probably don't use. AVG Anti-Virus is available for free for personal use at http://free.avg.com.
In addition to the virus category of problems, there are also problematic programs that fall under the spyware and adware categories. All these programs are often typically known as malware, which is another word for malicious software. Many anti-virus programs also protect against these types of problems including AVG Anti-Virus 8.0. For added protection for Windows XP, you may want to download Microsoft's Windows Defender for free. If you have Windows Vista, then you already have Windows Defender installed.
All Windows XP and Vista computers have a built-in firewall so there is rarely a need to purchase firewall software. The majority of the time it causes more headache than it's worth. The idea behind having a software firewall that blocks outbound connections is that if there is a rouge program on your computer, then the software will alert you when the rouge program tries to connect to the Internet. However, most people don't know what the rouge program is anyway, so they simply allow the rouge program access in order to get rid of the annoying popup message from their firewall software. In addition to this, often times the firewall software doesn't work correctly and blocks legitimate transactions between computers.
Many people like to purchase Security Suites which include all the above software, a Security Center, and more. Microsoft Windows XP and Vista both come with Security Centers. Most of the security suite software will disable or hide Microsoft's built-in security center and replace it with their own in order to have only one security center showing.
Another peace of software that the security suites often include is spam software. What people often don't realize is that if they are accessing their email using a web browser (Yahoo, Gmail, etc.), then the spam software is probably not doing anything but wasting resources, because the email is read on the web site instead of going through the spam software on their computer.
Parental controls are also included with some security suites. Most businesses don't need them so they again end up wasting resources. There are however, a couple of free options for those looking for help filtering their Internet. One option is to use Internet Explorer's built-in Content Advisor or Parental Controls included with at least some versions of Vista. Another option for personal use is K9 web protection.
One of the most substantial ways to protect yourself from the most common security threats is to not use the most common software programs. That means, the less Microsoft software you use on a regular basis, the less likely you are to suffer from a Microsoft security problem. This may seem like common sense, so the reason you would want to do this is because those who want to cause the most trouble are likely to exploit the software programs that most people are using. If you use programs like Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer for web browsing, or Mozilla Thunderbird instead of Outlook Express, then you decrease your chance of being affected by most problems on the Internet that target Microsoft software.
Securing your computer is the first step to cleaning your computer. If your computer is secure, then the only thing left to do to keep your computer clean is to remove outdated and unused files and settings. Windows supplies the Disk Cleanup Wizard for removing temporary files. There are a variety of tools that will also cleanup your registry settings as well. I've posted a few of the free options here.
If you keep your computer secure and clean, then the only maintainance a person may need to do to keep Windows performing well is to make sure the disk is defragmented. Fortunately, Windows Vista automatically defrags your disk drive so you don't have to manually do it. All the latest versions of Windows supply a Disk Defragmenting tool, however, some users have had difficulty with this tool, and it may not work as well as Auslogics Disk Defrag, which is available for free.