A Computer is like a car
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It needs a regular service and taken care of as much as your beloved car. This guide is there to help computer users maintaining a good running computer free from viruses, ad/mal/spy-ware and quick performance.

Firewall
A firewall is the first essential item you need to install on your computer if you decide to use it for surfing the web or wireless networking two computers. Although Microsoft have incorporated a firewall in the Service Pack 2 release of Windows XP, it already had it’s first flaw and I would not recommend using it. There are quite a few firewalls available commercially, but being a cheap-skate myself I rely for protection on my computer on the freely available ZoneAlarm (Download). A firewall protects your computer from other sources entering it. It also allows you to control the programmes that want to access the internet.

Anti Virus Software
After you have installed and activated the firewall, it is now time to protect yourself from viruses. A useful free Anti Virus programme is AVG (Download). As with all such programmes, you need to ensure that the definitions are up-to-date. One way of doing this, is to set the programme to automatically update it self, or to manually update it once a week (see below for weekly maintenance of your computer).

Prevention is better than cure
There are quite a few web sites about that intentionally will try to add software on your system to track your traces on the website. This gathered information is then used to blast you with unnecessary pop-up adverts. Other types of utilities could track your keystrokes. To prevent such applications being installed in the first place, a useful utility called Spywareblaster (Download) is recommended to be installed on your system. Once again, this programme is only useful if the definitions are up-to-date and all protection is enabled for IE and/or Firefox.

Deleting ad/mal/spy Ware
Spywareblaster prevents most of those nasties being installed on your computer in the first place, but it can not prevent all of them. It is therefore essential to rely on other utilities to search for these and delete them. I recommend the use of Adaware (Download) and the Microsoft AntiSpyware programme which is still in it’s beta stage (Download). The Microsoft utility has the added bonus to warn you if any nasties are trying to install itself.

Clean your internet traces
After an internet session, your history and cookies are stored on your computer. It not only takes up hard disk space, but it is a vault of information that you do not want people or programmes to get hold of. These traces can be manually deleted using the built in functions of IE, but a programme called MyPrivacy (Download) will take care of this with a one click process. It also cleans the index.dat file that keeps a permanent trace of the webpages visited even after you cleared the history yourself. It also clears your cache, one again saving unnecessary disk space.

Keep your registry clean
The registry of your computer is it’s nerve system. It points the computer where to access programmes from. When you delete programmes you do not want anymore, traces of the programme are usually still kept in the registry. It slows the computer down and with certain nasty programmes, it will re-install the programme again. To prevent this happening, I recommend that you download and install a neat free application called TweakNow Regcleaner (Download).

Your weekly service
Unlike cars, a computer will need a service on a weekly basis. Set yourself a couple of hours maximum aside to perform the following taks:

1. Update the definitions for AVG, Spywareblaster, Adaware and Microsoft AntiSpy;
2. Disconnect from the internet and run MyPrivacy to clear all traces and clear the cache, cookies and history;
3. Disable your System Restore;
4. Reboot your computer in Safe Mode;
5. Run the AVG application and remove any viruses found;
6. Run the Adaware application and remove any nasties found;
7. Run the Microsoft AntiSpy application and once again remove any nasties;
8. Reboot your computer in Normal Mode;
9. Run the TweakNow Regcleaner utility and let it remove any items that it recommends that are safe to be deleted;
10. Defragment your hard-disk by going into My Computer, right-clicking on the C-Drive and selecting Properties/Tools. The first time you use this utility, it will take a very long time. The more you use the utility, the quicker the process is;
11. Run Windows Update and let the utility install all critical updates;
12. Create a new restore point.

General recommendations

- Only visit webpages you trust. Try to stay clear of adult orientated websites, but if you must, make sure you do the weekly update immediately after you finish the internet session;
- Be very careful with file sharing applications. Do not use Kazaa, but use Kazaa light instead;
- Do not click on links in e-mails if you do not know the source of the e-mail;
- Only download applications from the internet if you know the source and have researched them first. There are known anti spyware programmes about that in fact are spyware themselves. If you are unsure, do not download it but ask first or do a quick Google to get background information;
- Delete any programmes from your system you know you are not going to use anymore;
- Run the Registry Cleaner utility after the removal to wipe all traces of the programme

I hope this guide was useful and if you require any assistance, please feel free to ask.

MarkJ