Recommended software
Just a quick couple of notes on downloading software:
- Only download software which has been recommended by someone you trust – even if it looks harmless.
- Don’t say yes to any question you don’t understand.
- When installing software using the installation wizard, always read what is on the page before clicking Next – there are often choices that are pre-ticked which you don’t necessarily need, for example toolbars, additional software.
- There have been a number of viruses lately which have used social networks to propagate. One bit of advice to come from this experience is that if ANY website you don’t absolutely trust advises that you need a new version of something (for example Adobe Flash Player) then go to the website of the actual company (in this example Adobe) to get it instead of clicking the download button on the questionable website.
Antivirus software
Since Windows 8, the operating system has come with an antivirus program already installed named Windows Defender. It is built in to the operating system and kicks in if there is no third party antivirus installed. When you install an antivirus program Windows Defender automatically turns itself off. The settings can be found in the tray (bottom right of your screen) in Windows Security.
It is advisable to only have one antivirus program installed – they invariably clash because they are both trying to control the same systems.
If you install a third-party antivirus, Windows Defender will automatically disengage.
There will always be variations in the hierarchy of the best antivirus but these two stand out as being consistently the best in the list of programs you have to pay money for:
Bit Defender and Kaspersky.
I used Kaspersky antivirus for many years and the ability of detection was always first rate.
The best and only free antivirus I would recommend is the inbuilt one: Windows Security.
Second line of defence
There are two programs I would definitely recommend as additional protection to be used periodically or as needed:
Adwcleaner
For when you get more advertising pop ups than normal or driver and cleaning programs you didn’t install. This program is so good it was bought by Malwarebytes.
Malwarebytes Antimalware
I recommend installing the free version and running it every couple of months just to make sure your main antivirus programs haven’t missed anything.
PC Cleaning
Since Vista there has been no need for defragging.
And since Windows 10 has regular feature updates which are a fresh install of the operating system there doesn’t need to be any registry cleaning done.
So really it is just browsers and temporary files which may need to be cleaned. This is for performance – if you are running out of space on you Hard Drive this is a different problem.
The best industry recognised PC cleaner is Ccleaner by Piriform. It has also recently been bought by AVG so it remains to be seen whether Ccleaner will remain as trustworthy as it once was.
When you install the free version and run the cleaner there are tickboxes which tell you what will be cleaned. It is worth checking the list to see what you want to keep, like Recent documents or browser history for instance. Anything you want to keep, untick it.