Routine maintenance is important for your house, vehicle, teeth and your computer. As much as we procrastinate and put those things off they eventually get our attention. The point of maintenance is to try and avoid the frustrating and sometimes painful attention getters. One area of our lives that often is taken for granted is the correct operation of the computers we use. It’s easier than you think to protect your computer from most malware and even remove most simple forms.

 

Removing malware from your computer is impossible without some kind of anti-malware software, the foundation of which is an anti-virus. Most anti-virus suites today have adware, spyware, everything-ware removal software with them but they still aren’t as thorough as using multiple specialized scanners. Think about it like getting multiple opinions from several doctors, each specializing in their own field working to give you a clean bill of health for free. That’s right, most of them are free. For antivirus software Microsoft Security Essentials is free and actually is now called Defender in Windows 8, Avira and AVG are also great free programs. Each one of those programs offers realtime virus scanning as well as a sleek interface that isn’t too bulky on system resources.

 

Cleaning up a mess is a different beast altogether. If you are already infected and your computer is already a little berserk you would need to have put so99me nice portable programs on your computer. Malwarebytes Free Anti-Malware is one of the best at removing unwanted malicious programs on your computer. I recommend you start by re-booting in Safe Mode by tapping F8 on startup, and running this program or one like it as there are several other free ones that are really good. There are a great many resources at www.bleepingcomputer.com that can assist you in cleaning up the damage done by malware. For instance, if every time you search for something it goes to some crazy ad-filled website  you could run adwcleaner which you can find at bleeping computer.  Hitman Pro actually has a tool called kickstart which will make an emergency bootable USB that kicks the crap out of most malware.Luck favors the prepared. Be prepared with free emergency scanner programs preloaded or saved on a flash drive.

Avoidance is a fantastic way to keep your computer clean. If something sounds too good to be true on the internet it probably is. You can always tell the kinds of websites that have the potential of installing malware on your computer because they almost always are associated with getting something for free. Games for free, 10,000,000 free holiday screen savers, free iPad’s! These harmless surveys always sell your information to other ad agencies who want to clog your computer with targeted ad’s designed to catch your eye like, “Economists predict boom in Fort Smith real estate click here to speak to a live qualified agent!!!” . It’s all bad stuff, and the best way to avoid it happening to you is to stay away from sites that are ad heavy. If you don’t recognize the extension, chances are you probably don’t need it. Ad-Block Plus is about the only extension I use across the platforms of Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer and it can help eliminate a lot of the mess. If you do get infected and it doesn’t look good, give Gadget Grave a call before you give up on it. We can save you the headache and protect you from malware with a 90 day warranty each time. Our Gizmo  Shield starts at $129.99 and includes all the good things you see above and then some to help back that warranty.