PC Care: Anti-virus, Anti-malware

Is your pc running slowly?  It may be time to clean up your pc.  On our website, http://zroundtable.com/, we have posted a page for PC Care that has our latest tips for software (most can be downloaded for free at download.com), including:

• Anti-virus
• Anti-malware (such as spyware, adware)
• Registry cleaners

We list our favorite programs, such as a new entry on our list: Microsoft Security Essentials -- which has proven to be a good anti-virus program.  Below is an excerpt.  

Please let us know your favorite pc cleanup programs.  

Anti-Virus - these are currently our favorite free antivirus programs:

• Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) - with version 2, Microsoft has made MSE2 the leader in free antivirus programs.  We still like Avast as well, and we are testing both programs.
• Avast - a very good anti-virus program; we particularly like the boot scan, which has caught programs that load 
• AVG comes in at third-place but is still a good antivirus program.

Anti-Malware (cleans spyware, adware & tracking cookies from your pc)

• WinPatrol - a good program to prevent unwanted programs from jumping into your start-up programs, etc.
• Advanced System Care - this is a good general all-purpose cleaner.  Includes anti-malware, file clean-up, registry cleaner, defrag.  
• SuperAntiSpyware - our favorite cleaner, although it is over-exuberant cleaning cookies.  You may elect to allow known "good" cookies to remain on your system. 
• SpyBot Search & Destroy - a good malware cleaner as well.

PC Cleanup, updated May 2010

Spring Cleanup... for your pc. Here are updated programs.

Anti-Spyware

• We like to run several programs to help clean spyware off of your computer. Different programs find different malware. You can find these programs free at www.download.com . Currently, our favorites include:
• SuperAntiSpyware
• Ad-Aware
• Malwarebytes
• Separately, Spywareblaster is a good program to run in the background to help prevent spyware from entering your pc.

Registry

• Cleaning up the registry can help reduce errors and speed up your pc.
• Check out: Advanced SystemCare, CCleaner

Defrag Your Hard-Drive

• You should defragment your hard-drive from time to time. You don't want your pc unnecessarily jumping around the hard-drive grabbing data. Remember to run your defrag:
• Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools> Disk Defragmenter

Anti-Virus

• Also, make sure your anti-virus program is updated. And, run a scan if you don't have it scanning regularly.
• We like AVG Anti-Virus Free.

Registry & PC cleanup

Sometimes, even when you run anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, your pc can seem sluggish -- or seems to have an increasing number of errors or problems. We've used CCleaner with good results. It will clean your registry as well as clean up temporary and other nonsense files on your pc. Try it out!

http://www.ccleaner.com/