The Computer Café’s Gareth Coleman gives us an overview of how they clean up home computers, and keep them running smoothly.
By far the most common problem we encounter in the café is a computer overrun with unwanted programs. A lot of this is related to internet activity, leaving unwanted pop-up boxes, a hijacked ‘home-page’, or your computer running slowly or crashing. These problems are caused by viruses and ‘spyware’ – software that secretly installs itself in your computer.
We start by using a program called AVG, which detects and deletes any harmful viruses. After this we use two spyware removal programs – Spybot, then Ad-Aware.
Prevention is better than cure, so now the PC is clean, we install Firefox, which is much less vulnerable to infection by spyware than Internet Explorer. Finally, a ‘firewall’ protects against hackers and other attacks from the internet. We use one called ZoneAlarm.
The final step uses something already built into the computer, called Windows Update, which downloads security and other updates for your computer. It is very important to do this regularly as bugs are discovered in Windows all the time.
More help and advice is available at http://burngreave.net/ (click on the Café logo). or pop in and see us on Saturdays, 12 noon–3pm in the basement of New Roots on Spital Hill.