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Do you remember when you bought your new PC? It was fast and smooth.

But a few months later the machine has slowed down dramatically. Start-up time has increased from a few seconds to several minutes. Shutting-down takes forever. The wait for programs to load is painfully slow.

Why has this happened?

The main reason that computers become slow is through the presence of malware of some sort on the machine. Malware is any unauthorized software installed on your machine and includes viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, spyware and adware. It is software that has malicious intent and its presence is felt everywhere.

If you machine does not have a good comprehensive security package installed then it is almost certain that it will contain malware. Malware appears through linking an unprotected machine to the Internet even for a few minutes. Worms, viruses and Trojans can also arrive by email. If your machine is unprotected, then you can be sure that there is spyware and adware on your machine.

Spyware specializes in collecting information about you, your machine and your internet habits. Information collected is supplied to unauthorized third parties.

Trojan Horses work their evil from within. Damage caused by Trojans can be huge, and includes allowing remote access to your machine from unwanted sources.

Viruses do more than just slow down your machine. They could render it unusable!

Worms replicate themselves, spread through networks and cause huge network traffic overload. In some cases worms carry a payload' designed to cause additional damage.

Other reasons that can cause a slow machine include:

* Data fragmentation. As files are added and deleted on your machine, file fragmentation takes place.
* Too many programs are being loaded up at start-up.
* The Windows Registry has become corrupted as new programs are added and old ones removed.
* Every time windows loads a new file or program, it adds the details into a prefetch file. Windows tries to locate all the files at start-up. It takes longer if they are not there.
* Temporary files are loaded into Windows memory at start-up.

Finding solutions to your computer problems can be confusing.

Many of the free' offerings on the Web are bogus. After downloading and running the software you are presented with a massive report of over 300 problems. You then have to buy a key that unlocks the code to fix your machine. It is unlikely to make any difference!

If you fall for these solutions you will usually be wasting your money.

Some programs

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