One of the first steps to take after purchasing a new computer is to set up anti-virus protection. Most computers today come with a trial version of Norton. Uninstall and delete all traces of this program. There are free programs out there that do a better job at a fraction of the resource usage.
I recommend Avast! Home Edition. It is free for non-commercial home use. You will have to register will them but there is no reason to pay for their premium service. At least until you get a hang of the prorgam, or want to make a donation. Avast will protect against spyware and viruses, and can be easily set to update it’s database to stay ahead of the viruses. It can also be set up to warn you when you are visiting a malicious site and stop your computer from getting a nasty cold.
Best of all it uses very little resources while running in the background, allowing you to better utilize all that RAM you spent your money on for playing music while surfing the web and rendering home videos, at the same time.
One important thing to remember is that you should only have one anti-virus program running. Make sure to turn off Windows default anti-virus protection, and uninstall any other anti-virus programs you have before installing a new anti-virus program. You can run into many conflicts and errors if you don’t.
A good alternative is NOD32, if you want to spend the money for anti-virus protection. It comes highly recommended from Leo Laporte, long time tech personality.
Does this help answer your questions? If not, leave a comment below or e-mail me.
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