If you’re into Internet be it for leisure or business, you certainly use a PC or notebook of some kind. And these machines are like drain pipes as they collect garbage along the way and becoming sluggish. As you would do with pipes, computers need to be spring cleaned regularly too. With computers, you might want to do more than just spring clean.

Ok, here we are talking about:

• protect your notebook or PC from security threats such as virus, spyware and phishing attacks
• physically remove unwanted files and registries
• organize file locations efficiently

Virus Protection Softwares

1. AVG Free. One of the most popular ones and it’s free. Easier download it at www.download.com and search for “avgfree”. As I write this, there were already 65.8 million downloads and this is on download.com alone.
2. Avast! 4 from www.avast.com. Interface looks like a popular multimedia player. Offers host of interesting features including boot-time antivirus scan, IM, Newsgroup and Usenet scans and even monitor your peer-to-peer downloads.
3. ThreatFire 3. Quite unique in the sense that it works by detecting the behavior of malicious software. Therefore can theoretically block threats that are too new for other signature-based antivirus application to handle. Get this one from www.threatfire.com

It is recommended that you install 2-3 antivirus softwares on your system for better protection.

Anti-Spyware Tools

1. Ad-Aware 2007. It is one of the earliest anti-spyware application out there and still reigns. Free version available from www.lavasoftusa.com
2. Spybot Search & Destroy. Download site is www.safernetworking.org

Clean Thy Computer

1. CCleaner. Removes temporary files from a number of applications such as IE, Firefox, Opera and those temporary files on your PC. Also has a registry scanner and cleaner. Use the cleaner function with care and always make registry backup before using it. It can also clean the Hotfix files that you accumulate from Windows updates. It’s available from www.ccleaner.com.
2. Secure Eraser. Download free from www.tucows.com/preview/507478. Able to completely remove files from your hard disk or better known as file shredder. Use it with care too as your deleted files are unrecoverable, gone forever.

Remove Startup Clingers

Lots of applications have a nasty habits of starting up with Windows which slows down the machine. One way to check this problem is to run Autoruns from Microsoft. Once installed and run, click on “Logon” tab and disable ones you don’t like. If you get undesirable results, enable the program again and restart the computer. Download Autoruns from www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals.

File Organization

Fragmented files can bring your computer speed down considerably. The good old Disk Defragmenter can do the job well. It’s already on your PC at Start-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Defragmenter. Please run it and you will see the difference. There’s no scheduling option but you can use Windows Scheduler for that.

Ok, go cleanup! Enjoy.

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