Free from computer related worries.

[askpc]

With increasing technologies, there are increased threats of virus and various other issues. We generally get worried on even small issue with the computer/PC. The best way is avoid all these by taking some careful steps:

1. Keep some free space in the hard drive.
2. Format your system at least twice in a year. Don't wait for a problem to occur to format.
3. Keep firewall updated.
4. Install anti-virus (only 1) and keep it updated.
5. Use the operating system that is supported by your computer/PC, i.e as per RAM size.
6. Scan every program before you run it. For this, use firewall command.

For any problem that occurs, there is online computer support service available widely today. You can take their help if any problem still occurs.

[alphaomega]

Why would you format twice a year? If you run only applications you work with and abstain from trying every free program on Computer mag disk, you will not need format at all. To run computer these days you need 3GB of RAM. Unless you have 64bit OS, that is all Windows can handle. Your slowest part is hard drive, so invest into fast drive. Usually the large disk are slow. Have a drive for OS and applicatins and another for data. That way you can have a relatively small drive for OS (350GB or so, like Western Digital 2.5" Velocitor), which runs at 10,000RPM and has good seek time. Also set the virtual ram on separate drive, this virtual memory fragments drives. Invest into good defrag program. Not just one free.
Most of all stop yourself from indulging in installing all the stuff that you offered from mags free disks and games. Keep away from adult websites also. They will plant malware.

[askpc]

Why would you format twice a year? If you run only applications you work with and abstain from trying every free program on Computer mag disk, you will not need format at all. To run computer these days you need 3GB of RAM. Unless you have 64bit OS, that is all Windows can handle. Your slowest part is hard drive, so invest into fast drive. Usually the large disk are slow. Have a drive for OS and applicatins and another for data. That way you can have a relatively small drive for OS (350GB or so, like Western Digital 2.5" Velocitor), which runs at 10,000RPM and has good seek time. Also set the virtual ram on separate drive, this virtual memory fragments drives. Invest into good defrag program. Not just one free.
Most of all stop yourself from indulging in installing all the stuff that you offered from mags free disks and games. Keep away from adult websites also. They will plant malware.

Thanks for the tips. I just shared the tips on the basis of my experience. I had been facing problem of slow speed with my PC for long, until my friend told me to format it and do it twice a year. From then onwards, I'm using that guideline.

[Sogo7]

Would suggest a few tips for WiFi security owing to its rise in popularity.

1. Stop using WEP encryption, use WPA especially if anybody lives within 100meters of you or your home is near a main road
2. Disable the routers SSID broadcast
3. Enable MAC filtering
4. Change your encryption key regulary
5. DISABLE auto connect options for BTOpenzone/Fon network [this applies to mobile devices and some smartphones]

1. WEP takes about three minutes or less to crack using statistical analysis
2/3/and 4 make life more awkward for a hacker to crack the key
5. Hackers can set up fake access points pretending to be BTOpenzone/Fon so when your PC or smartphone tries to connect it sends them your login credentials

[EdmontonEnquirer]

Advanced system care, MS security Essentials, Defender, definitely use another partition for your data files and everything you'd want to keep when Windows BSODs, and even trying last know good configuration fails so try a new install, and viola! You still hAVE all your datas and pics, vids, backups. Secunia PSI seems to be a decent regitstry monitor, but always, always, number one thing you do is keep windows updated, install WOT or MacAfee site advisor. These are fantastic for warning you if you try to go to a known malware site and gives you a report. I went anyways last week and by the time I figured out something was wrong, I had about a dozen trojans, several worms, keyloggers, other spywares and tracking and recording software, backdoors.. - 116 of the above, serious serious stuff. About one hour surfing a nature biology site is ll it took man do I talk a lot!

[Clint1]

Why would you format twice a year? If you run only applications you work with and abstain from trying every free program on Computer mag disk, you will not need format at all.

However frequent one reformats depends on their PC's, but it is necessary for the best running PC's. But you shouldn't need to format ever if you do mirror backups. Do a backup just after a format and installation of all your programs, and save that, and just restore that when there are problems.

To run computer these days you need 3GB of RAM.

Of course that depends on the OS, and how the PC is used.

.......That way you can have a relatively small drive for OS (350GB or so, like Western Digital 2.5" Velocitor), which runs at 10,000RPM and has good seek time.

I have one, and they are FAST! (BTW, that's "VelociRaptor").

Also set the virtual ram on separate drive, this virtual memory fragments drives. Invest into good defrag program. Not just one free.

If you mean swapfile, or pagefile, the drive has to be faster than the main drive, or at least as fast (as in the same model HD). The pagefile does not get fragmented if you set it to a fixed size.

There are great free defrag programs out there, for both HD and pagefile. Diskeeper is good (but I think no longer free), and PageFile Defrag, I THINK this is it: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/bb897426

[alphaomega]

Diskeeper is great program. I am using this for years. Even the low cost is better than all the others I ever used.
And of course the amount of RAM depends on the OS. RAM is the cheapest way to make your computer faster.
Back up, back up and back up. Disaster sits just around the corner. Computers are still very unpredictable. If cars are as incident prone as computers, we would be much healthier doing lots of walking.

[deepsand]

2. Format your system at least twice in a year. Don't wait for a problem to occur to format.

This is not only unnecessary - diagnostics can be used to determine HD health - but unduly burdensome unless one uses re-imaging to repopulate the HD. Absent that, it may for many be impossible to fully restore all.

4. Install anti-virus (only 1)

There is no single security application that will suffice for guarding against all threats.

5. Use the operating system that is supported by your computer/PC, i.e as per RAM size.

What does this mean?

6. Scan every program before you run it. For this, use firewall command.

Firewalls are not designed for such scanning.

[Clint1]

There is no single security application that will suffice for guarding against all threats.

I didn't even read the OP, (I figured it may have some "inaccuracies" in it and I didn't want to get into it. , I just read AlphaOmega's post), and I now see my expectations on the OP were correct--Couldn't agree more with Deepsand. But this may be a contextual thing since it's not a good idea to have more than on anti-virus program on a PC (they can conflict, and/or slow a PC down quite a bit), whereas with anti-malware programs are concerned you can never have enough. But if they are the real-time type they too shouldn't be all running all the time in the background because that too can of course slow a PC down. I have more than a dozen and I still get malware that only ONE may recognize.

6. Scan every program before you run it. For this, use firewall command.

Firewalls are not designed for such scanning.

Yeah that too (#6) isn't exactly correct. AV software's "real-time" scanning should always be enabled because that is what will automatically scan each file accessed. However, a firewall should be in play as well because a file can be benign as far as malware goes, and even heuristics, yet its behavior can be malware as in "calling home in a nefarious way" which only a firewall would notice and be able to block. I have seen that countless times:

I don't know if its still the case, but on XP (SP2 at the time I believe), and when using the classic native search, each time you search for something on your HD M$ is apparently notified about your own personal HD search! I was alerted by my firewall that the search, my PC, was sending the info to (if I remember corectly) sa.windows.com.

Yep, it is sa.windows.com, if you search for that you'll see info on the.....sniffing: It would seem "sa" is "search assistant" but contrary to comments, using classic search did not prevent the packet dumps. I had to add a rule to my firewall to block the IP, and domain (which doesn't appear to exist, at least not as a webpage).

That's just one example of many how a benign file (or action) can be capable of doing or resulting in some potentially not-so-benign things. While its action may be actually benign in the end, personally I don't think it's ANY of M$'s business WTF I search for on my own PC!

I've also seen this happen with actual full-blown malware numerous times; a file will scan clean by all scanners, yet it can be sending info to some cyber-terrorist scum IP, (and nefarious actions back to your PC), against which only a firewall would protect.

[alphaomega]

Since there was a mention of firewalls and antivirus I like to present something I just read.
What PC Authority thinks about NOD Eset Smart security (Antivirus and firewall combined). Read article bellow as printed in PC Authority in Australia.
Eset Smart Security 4 Home is efficient protection for those who don’t need the kitchen sink

Eset is one of the few security vendors that doesn’t insist on upgrading its software every year, and Smart Security is fundamentally unchanged since our last roundup in early 2010. But that’s no bad thing.

For a start, Smart Security 4 has always made very low demands on your PC’s resources. This month, it added just 60MB to our test system and a reasonable nine seconds to startup. That’s achieved partly by eschewing extraneous features: you’ll find neither redundant parental controls nor gimmicks such as Registry cleaners or browser plugins here.
That clarity of purpose also keeps the interface clean. The basic front-end is simple but sober, giving Smart Security 4 a more grown-up feel than some of its rivals. For those who like to get more hands-on, there are no fewer than 49 panels of settings hidden away under the Advanced Setup option.
Happily, there’s no need to get your hands dirty. With default settings, Eset’s package protected us against 94% of our malware samples – not perfect, but certainly respectable – without registering any false-positives.
Things went even better in the firewall test. The software asked us if we wanted it to run in Strict Mode or permit file-sharing, and to simulate a typical home setup we chose the latter. Even then, our attacking PC was prevented from probing network ports or extracting any useful information.

The lack of features makes the price seem high, but if you just want straightforward protection with minimal impact on your system, Eset is a good choice.