WITH the ever increasing internet speeds, the tones of downloads, malicious software, name it; your computer is no longer a personal computer as it was a decade ago.  It has literary become a public domain. 

Every day, you download or share many files either originating from you or your friends or even total strangers.  Such practice does not only expose your computer to other people to use but also, it is put at risk for information thieves and hackers to utilize.   For windows computers, When Windows is first installed; it boots up and runs extremely fast. But as more and more software programs are added, things can quickly come to a grinding halt. Even if your computer is brand new from the shop, most computers come already factory installed a lot of programs may not necessarily be your kind of programs and these could slow down your PC for nothing! As a matter of fact, whenever you install something on your computer, there’s a good chance that, start-up entries are being created. Some of them are useful, whereas others may be embedded by the software developers for marketing or trying to look better than their competitor or even to track your computer. Three categories of Start-up programs, namely; one type of bad start-up program comes from software companies who believe their software is the most important on your computer and can’t bother to make it start-up fast enough when called. They want it to start instantly, so they create a "helper” program to run in the background. This pre-loads much of their program into your computer’s memory, so when you actually go to use the program, most of the work is already done. The problem with this is that it takes time to start up and uses up your computer’s resources even when you do not need to use such programs may help in making your computer seem unusable. The second category comprises of those that come from malware, adware, and viruses. The distributors of these programs need their software to start automatically because either you would never start it as it does not serve you in any way. Because they want to track your usage and serve ads, they make them run stealthily.  The third category is of those that you genuinely want to start-up and keep running, e.g. SKYPE. With the above predicaments, you may need to take one or two or more actions in order to have the computer serve you better.  A slow computer can frustrate as it may constantly hand or even crash in the middle of a very important document or e-mail, leading you to start from zero again.  The best way out is to constantly watch out for such a situation.  You have to make sure that, your computer’s disks are fragmented periodically so that, the files are safely stored and can be accessed faster.  That said and done, avoid installing software that you do not need to use.  Because you have seen a program on someone’s computer, it is not a license to install it on yours too! Many freeware and pirated (from unknown sources) contain some of the spyware, adware or even viruses safely hidden inside them.  Their installation will open up an access to your computer by the software owners.  You must stick to use of genuine software.  Finally, always install the most reliable protection to your computer.  There are several Antivirus programs that double as antispyware and these could easily track such malicious programs before they get installed.  Remember, your computer is a very useful tool; as for me, I listen to the radio, watch TV, make phone calls, access my bank account, access e-mails, play music, all on the comfort of my laptop, anything that comes between me and my computer is my enemy number one! eddie@afrowebs.com