Rid Your Computer of Spyware and Adware
What many people fail to realize is that their PC, much like their car, needs routine maintenance in order to keep it running properly and at optimum performance and speed. Your PC or laptop’s performance will degrade over time due to normal use and activity. Even if you are cautious on the sites you visit and you never open any email from a non-trusted source, you may still have malicious software invading your pc and your privacy.
This software is known as spyware or adware. Overtime, as you visit website after website your computer can accumulate an enormous amount of spyware or adware. Many of these tiny programs are used by web masters to track buying habits or search habits on the Internet. The non-threatening type are small little tracking cookies that allow advertisers to display relevant pop-up advertisements for whatever the user may be searching for in a given period of time. Other types of spyware could have malicious intent and load keylogger type programs that capture every keystroke and record valuable information such as user names and passwords or even credit card information. Some even contain virus-like programs that can hijack your browser and change your homepage or the way your Internet Explorer browses the web.
All of this can be very frustrating to the novice computer user. They will notice a tremendous slow-down in how quickly their computer is navigating the web. Many users blame their slow computer on their internet connection and call their provider to fix the problem when in reality their computer needs a good old fashion house cleaning. Now…some users at this point get so frustrated that they take their computer to Best Buy or Circuit City and let the Geek Squads clean them off. At $80 – $100 bucks a pop, Best Buy welcomes these customers with open arms. What most people don’t realize is that the Geek Squad will use readily available Spyware and Adware removal programs to “clean” your computer. There is no need to tear down your computer or rebuild anything, a simple scanning program designed to remove spyware is used. The program runs for 15 – 30 minutes or more depending on how many files are affected and once the program finishes scanning a simple mouse click is all it takes to repair and remove the located objects. It is a simple process that can be done at home very easily and can save you the time and hassle of packing up your computer and dropping it off at the computer store. And best of all, it can be done much cheaper if you do it yourself.
I recommend using NoAdware it is a simple to use program with an easy to use interface and you can scan your computer for Free! Another program I have used in the past with great success is AdwareBot. It is a fast, easy to use program that finds and deletes virtually all know spyware and Adware.
Another tip I recommend for computer maintenance is a simple registry cleaner. This tool alone will optimize and speed up your computer and remove broken or corrupt registry files that rob your computer of speed and processing power. My favorite tool for this is RegistryFix. It is a complete registry cleaner tool that will get rid of all of those annoying error messages for good. If you continue to get error messages popping up or you have programs locking up or shutting down for no reason. This tool is a must have.
Good luck and I wish you the best PC performance possible.
