P.S.A. for those with COMPUTERS (UPDATE)

about twice a week, i notice that someone makes a post about " how do i get rid of _____ on my computer?" well, i decided to make this little handy dandy list of ways to keep your computer running at its optimal performance and help all of you to have a fun and safe (and discrete)internet experience.

1) google toolbar- it will keep those pesky popups at bay and you have the google search engine right on your task bar. by far the best popup blocker i've had.

2) Ad-Aware - this is a spyware remover. it will take away those strange messages that pop up on your window from those websites you "did not visit".

3) il System Wiper- this will erase the search history from your internet explorer, windows media player, and a couple P2P networks too. you can customize what you want to erase and what you don't which i really like

4) Zone Alarm- this is the free version of the excellent Firewall program that will keep your computer safe from outsiders trying to hack into your computer. believe me, this works. i just survived a hack last week because of this thing. the windows firewall will work, but it won't alert you of problems like this will. plus you can customize the settings which is always good.

5) AVG Antivirus- this will keep viruses from taking over your computer and causing you many headaches

6) Windows Update- keep your computer up to date with the latest patches by microsoft. this will keep your computer running smoothly and with the least problems possible. if you want zero... get a Mac

7) Defrag & clean up your hard drive about once a week.

this is for Windows XP, & might be the same for previous versions, but since i haven't used 98 since forever i'm not really sure.
Control Panel> Maintanence & Options> Rearrange items on hard drive...
after you're done w/ that one, follow the same steps up to M&O and then do Free up space on Hard Drive. this one will take a long time so do it right before you go to bed or are going out for several hours.

(UPDATE)

i know a lot of people have complained about IE automatically shutting down on them so i decided to put this on the front page so everyone doesn't have to search through this whole post.

www.mozilla.org
this internet browser works very good. it has a built in popup blocker and it will import your IE bookmarks. the 2 fallbacks, however, are that you can't customize the home page and video can't be viewed in it (at least i haven't been able to).

Trillion- this is an IM program that will merge your different IM services into one program. either do a google search or go to download.com to get it.

^ in other words, it's a post for everyone.

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Windows Washer - Does the same as il System Wiper and it erases the Temp folder and other files that are not needed (Frees Up Space!!) So you don't have to do it the hard way.

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il System Wiper erases Temp. Files too. it clears the history, cookies, previous URL addresses, & cookie index files

here's one more.
Mozilla- it's an alternative browser to IE. for those of you that constantly get kicked off of IE, this will be great. it will transfer your bookmarks for you and save your username & PW for you on request. the only thing i can find wrong with it is that you can't put the google toolbar on it. but that's ok since it blocks popups for you anyways.

i'll try to find the file that will encrypt your files on your computer so that nobody can access them once they're deleted. (for those of you who didn't know that files aren't really gone when you delete them.)

JoeGoblyn- that wasn't the one i was referring to, but i guess that might do. i guess i never noticed that when i used it. might have to check it out. i found one, but it's only 1 file at a time. i'm sure the one i saw before was a multi encryptor.

how so? that's probably one of the best apps i've loaded for my comp.

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one question. how often should I run some of the apps, especially adaware and il system wiper ?

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i like to run them about 1-2 times a week just to keep everything clean and working good.

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I know that a file is not actually gone when you delete it so how do you really get rid of it????

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there's 2 ways. you can encrypt it so that the info. is very hard to distinguish, or you can burn your HD with acid.

here's eraser. it's a program that will write over your previous files. it also explains on the home page how it's done.

here's how to burn your Hard Drive

those popups are called pop under ads. it's one of the newest ways to get around popup blockers. as for those "viruses" there's a program i used to use (but took off accidently). i think it's called add/remove pro or something like that. it's on download.com. it finds things that your default windows add/remove program won't detect. try that first.