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Maintenance

 This section will deal with keeping your PC clean, it may overlap a little with the Health page 

By Keeping Clean I don't mean the outside of the case, I'm talking about keeping your PC clean and tidy as regards software. There are lots of software products which will help keep your PC healthy. Anti-Virus, Defrag, Anti-Malware, Registry and temp file cleaners etc. I will go through a few of the ones I use but there are many more. 

Let's start with the differences between "viruses" and "malware." Viruses are a specific type of malware (designed to replicate and spread), while malware is a broad term used to describe all sorts of unwanted or malicious code. Malware can include viruses, spyware, adware, nagware, Trojans, worms, and more

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1. Anti-Virus - Defender (comes automatically with Windows 10/11), AVG, Avast, BullGuard, Norton, Kaspersky, Avira, McAfee to name but a few. Most have free versions along with their paid for version. These try to keep your PC free from contamination, some do it better than others. Some (usually the paid for versions) will actively monitor and prevent infection by always running in the background.                                                                                                                                                                                          

2. Anti-Malware - Most of the products mentioned above have an element of an Anti-Malware  process built in, others are Malwarebytes, Superantispyware, Emsisoft etc This software is usually run once a week to ensure your PC is malware free.                                                                                                                                                        

3. Defrag - With use and over time your PC's Hard Disk Drive (HDD/SSD), where you store your documents, Pictures and system files can become fragmented. This means that your data may not be contiguous in nature. By running a defragmentation process you will reduce or eliminate this fragmentation. Windows 10 has a built in defrag software. Hit the start button then type Defrag, this will bring up the program to run the defrag. There are many propritory software programs available to defrag your HDD. New SSD (Solid State Disk) drives in general do not need defragging due to the way the data is organised.