PCTips Box

No matter how fast or shiny computers might be when they are new, they all seem to get slower over time. That state-of-the-art PC you bought last year might not feel like such a screamer after you install a dozen programs, load it with antispyware and antivirus tools, and download untold amounts of junk from the Internet. The slowdown might happen so gradually you hardly notice it, until one day you’re trying to open a program or file and wonder, “What happened to my poor PC?”

Whatever the cause, there are a lot of ways to help speed up Windows and make your PC work better even without upgrading your hardware. Here are some tips to help you optimize Windows Vista for faster performance. (more…)

PC Security must be your first priority. Your personal computer is a common target for intruders and other malicious users because they want to access personal data such as bank account information, credit card numbers or any important data they could find.

Intruders not only steal your financial information, they could also use your computer resources – such as hard disk, processor and internet connection to attack other users. This way, law enforcement will find it difficult to solve where the attacks are coming from.

To prevent possible identity theft or computer hijack, follow these eight steps in maintaining PC security: (more…)

Slow computer getting you down? Wish you could speed up your system so that games won’t crawl by like a slide show permanently set to slow? Well look no further! I shall share five easy steps that you can take to improve your system’s speed! Most of them are free of charge, and all of them should have some effect on your system. So without further ado, we begin with:

1. Remove spyware and adware from your system. Have you noticed recently that ads seem to pop up whenever you go to a Web page? Or that Internet speeds are about that of diseased livestock? Your system’s probably chock full of spyware. What to do? Well, thankfully there are several things you can do. First, download either Spybot-S&D or Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware, and run it. This should remove most if not all of the spyware and adware on your system. Neither of these are particularly robust, however, so we move on to: (more…)

The iPhone, that extremely popular gadget built by the Cupertino company Apple, is one of the latest devices threatened by some malicious packages, as Orla Cox of Symantec today warned. What’s interesting is that this threat, if we can name it so, is not as dangerous as it may sound, because the only thing it does is to harm some of the applications deployed on the affected iPhone. The malicious file comes as a firmware update and is named “iPhone firmware 1.1.3 prep”. Its creators described the package “an important system update; install this before updating to the new 1.1.3 firmware”, according to the Symantec official. (more…)

WORM_VB.ZAA is a new kind of worm that attempts to infect the Windows computers, being executed once the user starts Windows Media Player. Security company Trend Micro wrote that the worm affected most versions of the operating system powered by Microsoft, including Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and Server 2003. But, what’s more important is that it has a high distribution potential bundled with a medium damage potential, so extra-caution is recommended, if you want to keep your computer protected. Now, let’s see more details about the infection. (more…)