Over time personal computers tend to slow down - particularly so with those running on Windows. I have heard stories of computers getting so slow that the owner just eventually gave up and bought a new computer instead.
But there are things you can do to speed up your computer.
There are a number of reasons why computers start to run slowly. Some of the most common are viruses and spyware working in the background of your computer, files scattered around your computer hard drive so your machine has to work harder to link them all together, and errors which gently build up on your hard drive.
There is a huge market of companies who make considerable profits sorting these issues out each year but instead I want to tell you about 3 free options that will help you do all of the above. I have been personally testing them for some time now and am really liking what I see so now I want to take a moment to show what I hope will be a few really helpful tips.
Antivirus
Personally I use Norton antivirus and swear by it but Norton *will* cost you some money. I pay for a multi-user license so I can have it installed on my 3 computers and have protection no matter which one I’m on.
However many people swear by AVG which is free. Personally I would only trust a tiny handful of brands as being truly useful. Plenty of people have old versions of antivirus or some other free application but its vital your antivirus is updated constantly. With new viruses being created daily, an antivirus program that doesn’t update online each time you log onto the Internet is probably failing to recognise some viruses and this can be dangerous.
Defragmenting
We download programs, delete files, uninstall software and so on. Over time this turns into a jumble of files and empty spaces on our hard drive and defragmenting hopes ot get rid of this fragmentation. This should therefore seepd up your computer.
Windows itself comes with a defragmentation application so you actually probably already have one right now. The problem is how slow it is. I have over 200,000 files on my main PC and a full defrag takes pretty much a whole night on my PC. That’s too slow for my liking.
However I recently discovered a really nifty tool called Smart Defrag that works cleverly when you’re not using your computer. So if you nip off to the loo, or watch TV, or even to check something in a book, the defrag software realises and jumps into action. As soon as you start using your computer again it goes into sleep mode.
In this way every time your computer is idle it defragments itself a little more, and as soon as you start using it, it goes into sleep mode. So you get the benefits of constant defragmenting (which means you don’t have to remember to do it!) but your PC doesn’t slow down while it’s working. What a great idea!
Registry Problems
There are loads of paid applications when it comes to sorting out registry problems but I have found a free one that works great. Called Advanced WindowsCare V2 this application will look at everything that goes on “under the hood” with your computer and then bring up a list of suggestions about what needs speeding up, improving or fixing. You select what you’d like it to do and it goes for it. I noticed a significant increase in speed personally when I used it and would strongly recommend it to you.
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