Tired of Your Computer Running Slow? Clean It Out!
What do you do if your computer is running slower than usual, but you don't want to deal with the time and money involved with taking it to a local shop? And who has the time to search through their computer for every potential threat?
There are many reasons that your computer could be slowing down, and I'm going to address one of those reasons in this post. Potential hard drive failure is one, and another issue could be viruses.
Viruses can get into your computer any number of ways, such as downloading a sketchy program, opening the wrong email, going to an infected website, and more. We aren't going into all of those yet though. In this post, I will break down how to use one of the tools that we recommend for emergency virus removal: ClamWin.
From the ClamWin website:
ClamWin is a free antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 10 / 8/ 7 / Vista / XP / Me / 2000 / 98 and Windows Server 2012, 2008, and 2003. ClamWin Free Antivirus is used by more than 600,000 users worldwide on a daily basis. It comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge.
Yep. Free. With this program, you can individually scan files on your computer, or search through large folders and their subdirectories to find all threats.
Pros:
- Detects a vast amount of viruses and spyware.
- Protects files like PDFs, XLSs, JSs, DOCxs, Zips and many other format’s
- Can search through specific files and folders instead of having to wait for your AV to detect them.
Cons:
- You must scan files and folders manually.
- ClamWin will only protect Windows machines.
- The setup is slightly more user intensive than antivirus softwares like Avast or MalwareBytes.
- The full scan of a C: directory takes much longer than other AV programs.
Let's get started!
How to install ClamWin on a Windows Machine:
1. Download ClamWin
First visit http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/18/46/ and click “Download Now”, to begin the process.
Your next page should look like this:
After the timer ends, a file will begin downloading in the bottom left corner of your browser.
Step Two: Install ClamWin
Once the file has completed its download, you should double click the file and a Windows dialog box will appear.
Click Yes to give the software permission to add itself to your programs.
ClamWin will then open and introduce itself as an antivirus software. Nice to meet you, ClamWin! Alrighty. You can click "Next" now.
Agree to the terms and conditions, and continue on your way.
This step is up to you, but I would recommend that you choose the "Anyone who uses this computer" option. Then...next!
ClamWin will suggest where to install itself, and more than likely it is a perfectly fine place, so all you have to do is click next again.
ClamWin is integrating into your system, just like you want!
If you’d prefer a few other languages of FAQ information, feel free to click the other boxes. Now click next.
This dialog page lets you rename the start menu folder that ClamWin will appear in. Completely optional, and fine to simply hit "Next" again.
Here, you can click both options (unless you happen to connect via a proxy server, as stated). Aaand...next.
Finally, the REALLY important part. Install this bad boy.
The install shouldn't take more than 10 minutes, but don't worry if it does take a bit longer. Let it do its thing.
This window will appear during the installation, and it will download the database.
Tada! You have protection.
Close out of this, go to your desktop, and open the program.
After you open the software from your desktop icon, this is what you should see.
Each of these three options are the major directories on your computer. I suggest looking for the closest directory to the suspicious activity, but you can also scan the (C:) directory. Then click Scan.
This will take a while if you chose the C: directory, but it should find any evil thing living in your computer and remove it.
This should help get your computer back on track. However, if it continues to operate at a snail's pace after you've followed this guide, you may need to go a step further. Contact us for a free consultation if you don't want to spend hours of your time googling for a solution. We're here to help.
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