Stay secure without slowing down your system performance
What is the best way to stay secure without slowing down your system performance?
Everything from software programs that protect your computer against malware by checking files transferred and monitoring the execution of programs, to using encrypted channels for communication, adds complexity and will possibly slow your computer down, just as airport security will slow you done getting on a plane.
Trying to optimize this directly is not something you should be expected or want to be able do. These days most professional security software should run at speeds which produce no noticeable performance hit on the machine you are using, but the fact is that they clearly sometimes do.
So what’s up, do these things not work as advertised? Why is it that people have to spend hours trying to tinker around with desktop computer security but not with a cellphone, such as an iPhone or Blackberry which does many of the things a computer does?
The answer is that computers are universal machines that people can install software to automate the calculation of anything in the universe that can possibly be computed. The more software that is installed and used on a computer, the more difficult it is for a piece of security software to account for all the possible security loopholes and flaws or conflicts which will impinge on the performance of the security checking procedures.
From the early days of the Psion OS to the Blackberry, for a variety of reasons, the culture of mobile software has been far more proprietary, involving far less tinkering, extension and modification, whereas the Personal Computer culture is founded on it.
There is a tendency to collect pieces of software that offer to make your life simpler in some way. And there is a tendency for people such as peripheral manufacturers to bundle all sorts of software with their devices. Every single one of these pieces of software may actually end up making your life more complicated and the degree to which this is likely to happen increases exponentially, the more software you install.
Here are five guidelines:
1. Use software that has the largest community of developers and the smallest complexity (not necessarily the largest user base)
2. Use software that has been updated regularly
3. Never be an early adopter
4. Never install a piece of software unless you really need it
5. Limit the number of software add ons and plugins you use
The best thing that anyone can do to stay secure without slowing down performance is to make your machine’s configuration, hardware and software, most like something that the designers of security software have fully accounted for. Keep your software setup simple.
Comments
Strange that makers of some of the most bloated anti-virus software around are doling out advice on how to keep machines running fast. In my experience, machines running Norton software take 10-30 seconds longer just to boot up, and are absolute resource hogs.
first paragraph typo. “done getting on a plane” should be “down”
Despite the truth of rebturtle’s above claim, I find this advice solid. I know that I, myself do have a bad habit of installing the latest cool freeware just to try it out. My firewall has been rendered toothless from my habits, and my anti-virus (not Norton, never Norton or McAfee anymore) has been consuming more and more resources since my last clean install of XP (’bout a year ago).
Simplify, simplify, simplify!! Or as the last sentence of this post politely implied, “Keep it simple, stupid!”
4 and 5 are recursive, or at the very least redundant…
It’s funny I thought the same about Norton - slow - heavy - soupy - forced software but it looks like things are improving based on a few reviews - see what cnet has to say - think they have a bit of street cred
http://reviews.cnet.com/internet-security-and-firewall/norton-internet-security-2009/4505-3667_7-33246586.html?tag=mncol;lst
You say that your PC is slow on start-up’s - Well it is your pc loading any active programs - Plus your antivirus software going online to get it’s update to be up too date for You to start your day.