1. Don’t Listen to Websites Promising to Speed Up Your Computer

In most cases, you’d probably land on a pop-up advertisement promising that your computer will run much faster after you try out their software. I assure you that this is a gimmick intended to make you pay money for software that only takes up space on your hard drive. If you really want to make your computer faster, you’re going to have to pay some real bucks to get its hardware in shape.

Everything running on your computer depends on the hardware to run smoothly. Go to your local computer store and ask for a quote on a hardware tune-up. Most likely, if you bought your computer less than two years ago, the process will be painless and inexpensive. Make sure they don’t get cheap and install a bunch of low-grade parts on the PC just to give you a temporary boost in speed.

The software you really need to make your computer run faster comes with Windows already. Disk Defragmenter is one of them. All computers running a Windows version above 3.0 can defragment their drives, and you’ll find the defragmentation utility in the Accessories sub-menu of your “Start” menu. The utility finds files on your hard disk that have been scattered all over the place and puts them all in one place, making them easier to find.

Other third-party utilities might speed your computer up efficiently, also, but don’t listen to the pop-up ads that advertise a utility that can speed up your computer. Use things like Tune-Up Utilities or something you can purchase from your local computer store.

2. There Are Two Types of Memory on Your Computer

This might be rather rudimentary, but there are cases when people can’t distinguish between random access memory (RAM) and storage. Both types of memory store things, but RAM only does this temporarily.

RAM stores everything you’re running right now, at this very second. This page you’re reading, for example, occupies a certain space in your RAM and will disappear once you close the page. Active components of every program are committed to this memory. A computer’s RAM takes the form of small cards that sit in slots on the motherboard.

Storage is the kind of memory that stores everything your computer has, like installed programs and the operating system. This memory often resides in the hard drive or solid state drive. Both devices have the same purpose, but are designed differently. A hard drive has multiple platters that spin, and read/write heads that manipulate and retrieve data. It’s sort of like a vinyl record player that can also write to the record. Solid state drives are designed with flash memory, much like the memory on your digital camera or phone.

3. Windows UAC and Security Isn’t Enough

Sure, Microsoft can boast about how its product has immense security and how you are less likely to get infected by a virus, but that doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a virus finding its way to your computer. You should always install an anti-virus application on your computer to keep it safe from threats, particularly one that regularly updates its database. There are many mixed reviews about anti-virus software, so you’ll have to do a little bit of homework to find out which one is right for you. Our favorite is Microsoft Security Essential though.

Try to avoid buying an AV from a company that’s not reputable. Do a Google search for “anti-virus review.” You’ll see a whole bunch of reviews related to many different anti-virus programs. Even better, search for “top 10 antivirus software.” Just so you know, BitDefender hits the top for 2012 and it’s affordable, priced at $30. That’s much better than paying insane prices for a computer repair after an infection.

4. Windows Update is Your Friend

Some people might tell you to turn off Windows Update because of bad experiences they’ve had. DON’T DO THAT! Microsoft usually releases an update within a week of discovering a new vulnerability. By updating your computer regularly, it keeps your computer running with tighter security that others might not have. If you don’t feel comfortable turning on automatic updates, at least let Windows prompt you when new updates are available so you can pick and choose them individually. Some of the updates released by Microsoft plug up serious security holes in the operating system.

A Final Word

I remember when I was much younger and got my first computer with Windows 95. It was something exciting, an unadulterated realm where I could do practically anything I wanted. There was only one problem: My computer became infected with all sorts of viruses after only a month, and I remember all the trouble I went through to get it cleaned up. Everything started running slower after a while, and I had no clue why. With the tips I mentioned above, you’d fare much better than I did and probably wouldn’t go through as much trouble. Happy computing/Windows-ing/whatever you do!

Photo Credit: flickr

Bitdefender Total Security 2012 is a complete security suite that comes with anti-virus, anti-spam, parental control, privacy control, firewall and many more security and Windows performance boosting features. The software, once installed, runs in auto-pilot mode so you don’t have to deal with tons of configuration options just to get it running.

To get it started, simply download and install Bitdefender (Bitdefender is NOT free. You can, however, download the free trial and see if you like it). Once installed, you will have to restart your PC.

After the restart, unlike other security suite, it doesn’t pop up to ask you to configure anything. It automatically assumes the default settings and run on auto-pilot mode. For once, I didn’t even know that it exists.

This is what you will see at its control panel:

By default, all the settings are turned to “ON”. You can easily turn them off by flipping the ON/OFF switch.

Anti-virus

The Anti-virus mode allows you to perform a quick scan, full scan, custom scan (of particular folders), vulnerability scan and reboot your PC in rescue mode. The vulnerability scan includes scanning of windows and applications updates and your password strength.

Anti-Spam

Anti-spam is probably useful only if you use email client like Outlook or Thunderbird.

Firewall

The Firewall scans your incoming and outgoing ports to make sure there is no unauthorized access to/from your PC.

Privacy Control

There are three modes in the Privacy Control section: Anti-phising, Data protection and encryption. The Anti-phising feature protects you while you are surfing the web. It detects phishing and fraud site and notifies you when you encounter one. It also integrates a toolbar to your browser and inform you if the page you are visiting safe or not. I do find this annoying though, and I switched it off immediately.

The Encryption feature allows you to add confidential files to the file vault and have them encrypted. You can also shred a file if you want to delete it beyond recovery.

Tune up

The tune up section cleans up your internet cache and detect duplicate files. You can also use it to monitor applications and see the amount of CPU and memory they are using.

Safebox

Safebox is the online backup solution of Bitdefender. They offer you 2GB of online space (bundled with the software cost) and allows you to backup important files to your account. You can get it to autosync so your important files will always be backed up. While this is a great effort by Bitdefender, a meager 2GB storage space is not going to amount to anything, especially if you are going to backup your music and videos. With online storage solutions abound, I am not sure this feature will attract any interest and usage.

Conclusion

Most security suite software use plenty of system resources and cause your system to go slow. For Bitdefender, it is not the case. At its auto-pilot mode, it only takes up less than 10MB of memory. As I mentioned earlier, I almost forgot its existence. Together with the comprehensive security features, it is definitely worth the consideration if you are looking for a security suite software.

Bitdefender costs $69.95 for 1 PC per year.

Bitdefender

Anti-virus suite aside, the next better thing you can do to protect yourself is to setup a security sandbox for your users to access. Within this zone, any virus or security threat won’t be able to make changes to the system files and folders. BufferZone Pro is one such software that provides security sandbox, and it is free.

What BufferZone Pro does is to create a virtual zone where you can surf the web and IM chat with your friends. Within this zone, all potentially threatening programs and files remain isolated from your personal files and your PC’s operating system and your personal and private information (especially when you are doing Internet banking) stay in a separated trusted environment.

Download BufferZone Pro and install it in your Windows computer.

There’s almost zero configuration required. Once you are done with the installation, BufferZone Pro will scan our system for software that access the Internet. When you open your browser or any other app, you will see a big red border around it, which means the session is being sandboxed and protected.

When you open the BufferZone dashboard while you are surfing, you can see the number of activities it is monitoring and the number of privacy and system threats prevented.

If there is a program that is not protected by BufferZone, you can also manually add it into the virtual zone.

Other features include creating a snapshot of your current virtual zone and the ability to restore from it in the future. You can also hide confidential files so it won’t be detectable on the web.

Personally, I have tried BufferZone Pro and I am surprise that it doesn’t affect the speed of browsing, nor does it slow down the system. Other than the big red border (which is rather ugly) that signifies its existence, everything run as per normal, except with the added security.

Even if you already have the best anti-virus suite around, it doesn’t hurt to install an extra layer of security to protect yourself and your computer. Give BufferZone a try, especially if you are a system administrator or technician.

BufferZone Pro

Image credit: CarbonNYC

To download the beta version of Microsoft Security Essentials, you need to first login to your Windows Live account and complete a survey. Once that is done, you will be able to download the respective software for your Windows version (Win XP or Vista/7).

At MakeTechEasier, we will take you through the software and show you what to expect from this yet another Microsoft product.

Simple Interface

One thing that anyone will notice immediately after the installation is that it is simple in design and user interface. You don’t find plenty of fanciful icons or even several levels deep of tab menu. All you find is only a simple window with some simple, but important options.

There are four main tabs on the window: Home, Update, History and Settings.

Home is where you view the current status while the Update tab show you the last virus definition update time. The History tab shows a list of all the virus detected on your computer and the actions taken to combat the virus. Lastly, the Settings tab contains the common configuration options found in almost every anti-virus software, including scheduling regular scan, actions to take when viruses are detected, scan files and attachments as they are downloaded etc.

Low on Memory Resources

I have tried several anti-virus software, both paid and free, on my Windows over the years and there is always one thing in common: The CPU and memory usage spike up whenever I run a full scan of the computer. When I test-drive with Microsoft Security Essentials on Windows 7, I was surprised that while scanning my hard disk, it didn’t cause my other applications to hang. I am pretty impressed by the low memory usage and how it can get things done without causing the whole system to hang.

Screenshots tour:

After Thoughts

With the bitDefender firewal, User Account Controll and now the anti-virus software, it seems that Microsoft is making a serious attempt to combat the all securities issues that are troubling them all this while. While this won’t stop hackers from developing new viruses, it does make the system slightly harder to crack.

What other anti-virus software do you think is worth the mention here? Shout it out in the comments.