Computer Security and Optimization

I am always leery of my two kids using my computer. Their ages are 22 and 19 so I don't have my computer set up to block specific sites. If I were to be in charge of setting up a network at school, I can't imagine where I would start to try to block all of the sites that kids are capable of visiting. I think I am relatively safe with the sites that I visit, but I have some e-mails sent to me that some of my friends get carried away with. It gives me some sense of security when whatever software in charge states "no virus" detected before I am allowed access to a download, but I am not entirely convinced they are free of malicious activity. Remembering the "I love you" e-mail from years ago that infected so many computers. Who would not be intrigued with that as the subject line? Sent to me, I have to open it!

I do have a free antivirus program that I run. It is called "Avast" for non-commercial purposes. I do recall loading it on my old HP tower which has since passed and it felt great the 1st time I ran it and it found some viruses and quarantined or expunged them. I am all about the free bees but they do give me some grief in worrying are they working as well as something I would pay for.

I do try to manage my files somewhat and rid my hard drive of files that I haven't used in a long time. I could do a better job of this, but the hard drive has so much memory that it doesn't seem necessary or important enough to do all that often. I do have my hard drive scheduled to defrag at regular intervals.