| More Advice |
| Another common mistake we see when doing repair work on someone's computer here in Phoenix Arizona is that all of the programs are out of date. Just about every program out there, even windows, has updates. Anti virus and spyware programs can update daily! The most important updates are your windows updates. Usually they are critical security issues and should be downloaded immediately. Especially since these updates usually aren't proactive, meaning, they are responding to a threat that is already out there. Windows updates can also be for new media players or updates for certain hardware. For most people I would suggest just turning auto updates on and select the express option that downloads all the updates for you. I usually choose custom however, because there are updates you won't ever use or need that will just take up space. Most people however, have more than enough storage on their hard drive, and I would recommend just choosing express. Anti virus and spyware programs should also be set to update automatically, or you should check for updates daily, or at least whenever you use the computer. I tend to let my anti virus programs auto update, and I choose to update my spyware programs daily when I run them. This is just to cut down on time when starting windows. When choosing a spyware program, you need to be a little more picky. One good thing is that there are tons of freeware spyware programs out there that do a good job. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad ones out there too. Some of them can be too sensitive in the scans and remove cookies or files needed for certain websites or programs to work. Some scanners will even recognize other scanners as spyware. A good scanner may even tell you that you have a "rogue" spyware scanner. These scanners will either find bogus items to scare you, or even put spyware into your computer! But there is good news.... There are some great reputable scanners out there. I have used Ad Aware (the free version) for years. It usually finds something and it updates pretty frequently. This is key, since most spyware scanners search with definitions. Like windows, it needs updates, to know what to look for. I love Spyware Doctor, it updates daily, with major updates frequently. It used to be freeware, but now you have to pay for it, but it has definitely been worth it for all the spyware its removed from my computer. Windows Defender is a nice program by Microsoft. It is standard on the new Windows Vista. Although it's never found anything on a scan on my computer, I did use it to remove some spyware related programs from a clients computer and it ran much better afterwards. There are many other great options out there in spyware removal as well, I've tried too many to list here. A good place to find them is on C Net's Download.com at www.download.com. There you can read user and editor reviews to see if the program is any good. This is actually a great place for downloading freeware, trialware or paid programs for just about anything. You should also be careful about which registry cleaner you use as well. Some of them may remove registry items that you need for windows or your programs to work. Make sure that with whatever program you use that it can restore the registry items it deletes. This way you can restore the entries that you deleted if you come across any problems and avoid any computer repair issues. |
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