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In With The New.
You finally replaced that irritating old slow-poke dinosaur of a computer with a brand spankin' new one.
It's the biggest, bestest, fanciest, fastest computer money can buy. It'll be great, won't it?
No more crawlin' around on the net for you!
You'll be clickin' around at lightning fast speed.
Changing pages in a snap, Downloading in seconds, not hours.
It won't last. It never does.
All too soon you'll be searching Google for "why is my new computer running so slow".
Your new computer will begin to slow down, just like the old one did, and unless you take a little time to learn some basic maintenance tasks, you'll end up right back where you were in no time at all.
Easy Tweaks For Your Windows XP Computer
Nearly everyone has basic Virus Protection software these days, or at least they think they do.
Most all new computers come with some type of antivirus program preinstalled on them for your convenience.
Maybe it's just too convenient.
Do you keep up your subscription to assure your updates are current to protect you from the latest threats and attacks?
Many people don't, and they can't figure out why their computer isn't working like it used to.
They end up taking it to someone to "fix" it for them, which in many cases amounts to nothing more than getting the hard drive formatted, the software reloaded and returning it in the same configuration it came in new
(for about a hundred bucks).
Now they can take it home and start all over loading in thier peripheral software, internet settings, address books, and hopefully, if they had any important documents, they were backed up on something, somehow, somewhere.
For much less money minus the aggravation, this may have been avoided by simply maintaining a current subscription with a trusted security software company and setting the program to automatically update itself.
~Maybe it just seems a whole lot simpler~
A Computer Virus is a program or a piece of code that attaches itself to a program or file in order to spread from computer to computer (without the user's knowledge), leaving infections as it travels. The degree of harm a virus can do, depends on the virus itself. Some merely cause annoying effects, while others can harm software, files and even your hardware. A typical virus will be attached to a file that can exist on a computer without infecting it until the malicious program is run or opened. A virus requires human action to allow it to spread. Viruses are unknowingly spread by e-mail attachments and by file sharing.
A Worm is a program or algorithm that is designed similar to a virus, which will replicate itself over a network, performing malicious actions as it travels. Unlike a virus, a worm doesn't require human action to spread. Utilizing file and information transport features of a computer system, it spreads without assistance. A worm's most notable danger is its ability to replicate itself on your system. It can send itself to everyone in your address book, and everyone in their address books, and so on. The end result is that the worm, through its nature to copy itself, will consume too much system memory and network bandwidth, causing both individual and servers to stop responding. Some worms have the ability to tunnel into your computer's system and allow a malicious user to control it from a remote location.
A Trojan Horse is a destructive program that will appear to be a useful program, it will cause damage when it is run or installed on your computer. A person normally won't know they are receiving a Trojan horse because it will appear to be software from a legitimate source. Much like a virus, the severity of a Trojan horse can vary. Some Trojan horses will do annoying things, like adding desktop icons or changing your desktop. Others can delete your files or destroy your information, causing serious damage. They may also create a backdoor on your system that allows a malicious user access into your system. Your personal and confidential information could quite possibly be compromised. Trojan horse programs do not replicate or reproduce like worms or viruses.
A Blended Threat is a sophisticated combination of virus, worm, Trojan horse and malicious code all rolled into a single threat. Using the worst aspects of all of these ingredients, allows them to spread rapidly and leave widespread damage in their wake. Blended threats are considered the greatest security risk due to their ability to damage multiple areas of a system or network simultaneously, combined with their ability to self-propagate.
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