Maintaining a tidy system is essential. Regular updates and organization help keep everything running smoothly.
Maintaining a tidy system is essential. Regular updates and organization help keep everything running smoothly.
Okay then, I'm hoping that someone with alot more knowledge than myself can help me here. I've some questions about security, and keeping my PC running in tip top condition. I have recently had a number of issues with smartbar and srctps.exe, srcpts.exe, and srptm.exe programs running on my machine. I have removed this software I don't know how many times, as there have been occasion where they have been taking up to 50% of my CPU's power. In the process of deleting these, for what feels like the thousandth time, I got to thinking about my antivirus and general system security. And in short I would like to know as much as I can about how these programs (antivirus that is) work so that I can make a more informed decision about which is right for me. So just to say I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to these things, I know that I need one (I'm currently running SUPERanti spyware, along with CCleaner), and that I need to run them regularly. I can also take general inference from the UI's in these programs as to what they are doing but I would like to know more. I have in the past ran Microsoft Security Essentials, and never had any problems bar the odd trojan which wasn't picked up by it, but I read somewhere that support for security essentials was soon to stop so I decided to try a few others. So I guess my questions about the workings of these programs is as follows. Firstly why is there a need for these programs? This is more me asking what are the buggers, who are putting viruses and these "Smartbar" programs on my machine, trying to achieve? What do antivirus software actually do to search and remove (quarantine? whats the point in this?) harmful programs? Is this just purely a search for known file names and extensions and then a delete? If so this seems on the face of it a very superficial way of removing a threat. As I said I have had problems with a program which has been named the same for a number of weeks and doesn't seem to be picked up by my antivirus despite being unwanted and certainly not deliberately installed by myself. Isn't this the point of antivirus and cleanup programs? What else should I be doing to stop crap being installed unknowingly? What are the best solutions for keeping away these programs? Is there a complete package that will keep everything running fine? I've had issues in the past where I have had to download special software to remove specific threats, and would like to know why there isn't a program that does this all automatically. I really don't want to hear what you are running, and that you've never had any issues etc, I would like to know about how these programs work. I would like to know what the best systems of keeping away these problems (or at least limiting them) are. I should also mention that I have read elsewhere that UAC's and programs that prompt about harmful software are one of the best ways around it. At the moment I have UAC's turned off. They drive me mad. I don't want to be prompted every time that I click on an exe that I have purposely downloaded and want to install. I want to know about the software that is trying to install itself without my knowledge. So suggestions and general information would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.
This occurs when downloading free software or visiting untrustworthy sites, which can infect your computer in various areas. Even after uninstalling, these issues often remain. Strong antivirus and anti-spam/malware protection are more effective at removing them. Sometimes you need to reformat your hard drives and reinstall the operating system.