Posted: 5/1/2014 4:04:44 AM EDT
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I've heard ads on the radio for these online services that clean junk off your computer to make it run faster & more reliably. How trustworthy are they?
I'm not a tech guy and I'm suspicious of letting an outside entity have access to my computer. |
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Quoted: I've heard ads on the radio for these online services that clean junk off your computer to make it run faster & more reliably. How trustworthy are they? I'm not a tech guy and I'm suspicious of letting an outside entity have access to my computer. For the most part...they're not. Typically these places offer a "Free scan" through their website. What this does is install software on your computer to perform this "scan." This scan may or may not actually be honest in its results. Either way, their goal here is to tell you that your computer needs maintenance and that you should buy their cleaning software/services which may or may not be malware. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and CCleaner are the only tools you need to clean your machine out. Make it a routine every few weeks or months. Doesn't hurt to check installed programs and clean stuff out that you don't need or use. If you don't have anti-virus then look in to something like Avira, it's good and free. Microsoft Security Essentials isn't too terrible and that's free as well. |
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Skip them, don't pay.
Look at AVG or Avast for a free anti-virus. If you get infected, use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Spybot Search & Destroy to clean the machine - both are free. I recommend using both and running 2 scans with each to remove an infection to make sure everything is found. And the programs (anti virus included) only work if you keep them updated, which a lot of people neglect to do. |
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Quoted:
Skip them, don't pay. Look at AVG or Avast for a free anti-virus. If you get infected, use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Spybot Search & Destroy to clean the machine - both are free. I recommend using both and running 2 scans with each to remove an infection to make sure everything is found. And the programs (anti virus included) only work if you keep them updated, which a lot of people neglect to do. Spybot has really gone down hill...last review I read said don't even bother with it, it didn't catch anything. I do really recommend AVG, it has a cleanup tool built in that is pretty effective as well (free trial) |
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I've stopped using AV programs that run all the time. ClamWin to scan once in a while, other than that, as long as you're not using IE, you're pretty safe. I use FireFox with Ghostery, Adblock Plus, and Flashblock add-ins running. Keeps pretty much all the crap from even showing up in the first place. The biggest security hole in any computer system is the human anyway. I'm the only human that uses my computers. We have a guest computer setup in the living room for guests to use. Nothing on it that can't be trashed and replaced. |
