So your parents bought you a brand new laptop this summer for all that research and essay writing – Which so far has just turned out to be non-stop facebook stalking, music and movie downloading, and our personal favourite, checking your online balance the morning after to see that once again, your card took a horrible bashing at the club last night…
We use our computers for everything whilst at Uni, and most people don’t protect themselves against viruses and spyware which can be really harmful to your PC and data security. We’ve rounded up three totally FREE programs which will help your computer to stay protected against most threats that are out there, and in some cases will help your PC speed up dramatically …
1. AVG Anti-Virus – One of the best anti-virus packages out there. AVG offer a free version of their software for users who want basic virus scanning for peace of mind. They offer a premium version of the software on their website, but to be honest the free version is definitely good enough for most of you out there. It comes with free updates too, so you’ll always have up to date protection.
2. Spybot Search and Destroy – another big name in the ant-virus world, Spybot looks for ‘spyware’ or ‘malware’ which silently tracks your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile for you that is transmitted without your knowledge to the compilers and sold to advertising companies. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you haven’t intentionally installed, if your browser crashes inexplicably, or if your home page has been “hijacked” (or changed without your knowledge), your computer is most probably infected with spyware. Even if you don’t see the symptoms, your computer may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging. Spybot-S&D is free, so there’s no harm giving it a try to see if something has invaded your computer.
3. CC Cleaner – When you uninstall programs on your computer files often get left behind, this little program removes unused files from your computer which helps to free hard drive space and make your PC run faster. It also includes a registry cleaner and a handy tool for removing temporary Internet files…
