Why is my computer suddenly so slow?

[twinky]

We finally joined the rest of the world in getting broadband about 6 months ago. Oh the joy of being able to mumsnet properly! We had McAffee but were told we could get Virgin PC Guard for free so put that on. In the last few weeks I've noticed that it seems to be taking us longer to look things up and get the PC started. Is this due to the change in security or something else? I'd really appreciate some advice from those of you who know about these things.

It could be many things.....

Firstly is the Virgin software, which I'm not familiar with, up to date? Is there an update process that you need to do with it?

Also download, install and run the free version of Malware Bytes from www.malwarebytes.org/.

Anti-Virus software isn't perfect and bad stuff can still get through it, plus there's lots of bad stuff that isn't really a virus, MalwareBytes will do a pretty good job of hunting out anything nasty that could be slowing your machine down.

If after that you're still running slowly then it might be a case of working out what's running when your computer starts up, which isn't impossible but is a little bit fiddly. So do the easy steps, which are things you should be doing anyway, and see what happens...

Thanks very much BadgersPaws. Every so often I'm prompted to run updates by Virgin - just did a virus scan yesterday that said there were no viruses present. However I will try the link you suggested too. I take it it's safe to run that even though I've got PC Guard on already?Thanks again.

Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware is not quite the same thing, so running PC Guard and scanning now and again with MalwareBytes is a very good thing to be doing.

So yes it is safe to run them side by side.

can anyone use/run malware with other security?

"can anyone use/run malware with other security?"

Malware is the bad stuff that you don't want to run... So I'm presuming you mean "anti-malware" software in general or "MalwareBytes" in particular.

In answer to that question yes you can and yes you most definitely should (presuming you're on a Windows PC, Macs are a lot safer and a different issue).

Security software falls into three main categories (well primarily).

Anti-Virus: Look for viruses, things that spread themselves (well almost).
Anti-Malware: Look for things that are known to be "bad' that creep onto a computer in a number of ways but are not "viruses" as such.
Firewall: Stop things from the internet getting onto your PC and stop things on your PC talking to the internet unless you want them to.

On a Windows PC you want to make sure that you've got all three bases covered and that can mean having three separate bits of security software running all doing slightly different things.

An Anti-Virus package alone is not sufficient.

Thanks badger. I meant can i click on the link you did and download it and it won't harm my other security

Think I have eset/nod

"I meant can i click on the link you did and download it and it won't harm my other security"

No it shouldn't harm anything.