Antivirus or anti-virus programs are basically applications that are developed for the sole purpose of detecting and removing malware from your computer. Malware is a broad term that encompasses a great many malicious files, such as viruses, hijackers, adware, rootkits, Trojan horses, adware, backdoor diallers, and key loggers.

There are a number of factors that can adversely affect the speed in which your computer shuts down. It can be anything from a hardware conflict, incompatible driver, corruption of data, to a poorly configured operating system. On the flip side, it could be a combination of all of these factors. However, in this tutorial, I intend to show you a number of tips that you can use to dramatically decrease your shut down time.

During the boot up phase of your operating system, there is a fairly substantial amount of services that are loaded up, by default. Most of these services are very helpful, but some of them are only applicable to certain working environments, and thus only help to slow your system down.

Malware, viruses and hackers are a real risk for all computer users out there. As long as you have a system hooked up to the internet, there is always a chance that your computer could contract anyone of these threats. It was but a decade ago, the word “firewall” was virtually unknown to most, but today it’s become an integral aspect of everyone’s computing experience.

Constant disk thrashing, freezing and extensive load times are all common symptoms of a slow hard drive. So it goes without saying, a fast hard drive is an integral component of any modern computer. Your hard drive is the one area in your computer where all your information is permanently stored, so you’d like to be able to access this data as quickly as possible.

With the advancements in internet technology, people are now able to access information almost instantaneously. However, slow and/or intermittent internet connections are becoming more and more of an issue. Your connection speed is influenced by several factors.

If you have multiple people accessing your computer, it’s likely you’re going to want to block access to certain websites, websites that you deem inappropriate, such as gambling sites, violent sites, racist sites, and porn sites, or possibly highly addictive web portals such as social media networks, i.e. MySpace and Facebook.

Without a functioning operating system, our computers are as good as dead. The accidental deletion of a system file, corrupt installations, and driver issues may lead you into the path of restoration. In past Windows versions, once you reached a stumbling block such as this, your only viable cause of action was formatting and reinstalling your operating system, which would typically result in total loss of data.