Computer troubleshooting and solutions

Any PC that is accessing the internet will accumulate a nuber of Adware and spyware bugs. And over time, the number of these problems increases. When a hacker installs a spyware program on your computer, he instructs the operating system to start running these programs when you turn the power on your computer on. So before you do anything on your computer, your PC is already running several hundred programs in the background. These programs must be cleaned out on a regular basis. At the bottom of this page, you will see the names of 3 programs that are 100% safe to use and are totally free! No one will ever ask you to subscribe, or tell you that the trial period is over. NO anti-virus program will ever protect you 100% of the time. Hackers are continually coming up with new virus and malware programs and it's difficult to keep up with all of them. So if you scan your computer on a regular basis, you can keep your computer clean of these programs that slow your computer down.

Microsoft Windows XP has two types of "accounts" that you can set up. The first, which is set up as a defualt when XP is installed on your computer is an Administrative account. The owner of this account has full priveleges to make any changes to the account, including installing and uninstalling software. When you surf the internet under an administrative account, hackers can see that you are an administrator and can use your administrative rights to make changes to your computer without your consent or knowledge. The second type of account is a limited account (see the Hubpage on creating a new account in windows xp), and the holder of this account does not have the right to install software on your computer. I suggest you surf the internet as a limited user, so you do not accumulate harmful programs as you would with an administrator. A limited user can download music and any other content, but you will need to use the administrative account to install any software that is downloaded. Please keep in mind that there are many programs on the internet disguising themselves as anit-virus programs. They are actually Malware programs, which will destroy your computer. Please see the Hubpage on Trusted Programs and Known Malware Aliases to see if a program in question is legitimate or not.

I have used Norton and McAffee anti-virus programs and depending on your computer's processor and RAM, these paid-for programs can slow your system down. I have been using AVG free anti-virus (the current version is 9.0), and it has never slowed down my computer. It is the most downloaded program on Download.com (if that is to tell you anything) and does continue to occupy the number one slot for years now. See the Hubpage on AVG for info about how to download and install it.

The other two programs I cover that you need to use to scan your computer on a regular basis are Spybot Search and Destroy for spyware and Ad-aware Anniversary Edition for adware.