New computer, seeking advice!

Hi people,

i recently bought a new computer with an installed Win7HomePremium. It is fairly good and these are a few of the properties:

Intel i3 540
4GB memory
32bit OS

(if u need more ask)

I was wondering what programs you can suggest me, I'm getting mixed messaged from all kinds of people on what software i should(n't) download and its getting annoying... so i'm glad i ran into this forum, seems like the ultimate forums for my questions

So a general question could be what programs u suggest me to use in order to keep my computer swift and powerful and without viruses?
This is my antivirus - avast
i think my firewall and WinDefender are on.

I've heard that these programs are good:

Malwarebyte
Advance System Care

It should be noted that the person who recomended these to me has a computer since 2003 which she uses the progs to clean it every 2-3 days. And it's working great, or so she says.

So in addition it could be awesome if anyone can give me ONE answer instead of the mixed opinions - whether or not should i clean my computer by running such software and if so which ones and how often?


Also is it true that IE is regarded as a problematic browser? I switched to Chrome without erasing IE and so far it's fairly good (except for random slow downs and sites not opening , and especially having trouble being on facebook too long )

One more question that i believe , out of anyone, you can help with: By default, the folders are presented in list-like formation and it's kinda tiring going over every folder and ordering them differently. Can I do anything to make all of the folders sort in a different way?

Last thing - and possibly one of the more important ones - my technician told me that if i were to format my PC, and i'd have at that point over 200GB taken (out of the 500 i have ), the computer will erase some of MY files as well.
If that is true - that's completely stupid. Is it ? And if so what should i do? (have one partition)

BTW I often see all kinds of short versions of words here, like BSOD, SSD, UAC and what not. It would be very nice of you, considering many of the readers don't know these terms, to simply write the full word. It doesn't take much time .

THANK YOU VERY MUCH !!!!!

Inuyasha said:

Hi people,

i recently bought a new computer with an installed Win7HomePremium. It is fairly good and these are a few of the properties:

Intel i3 540
4GB memory
32bit OS

(if u need more ask)

I was wondering what programs you can suggest me, I'm getting mixed messaged from all kinds of people on what software i should(n't) download and its getting annoying... so i'm glad i ran into this forum, seems like the ultimate forums for my questions

So a general question could be what programs u suggest me to use in order to keep my computer swift and powerful and without viruses?
This is my antivirus - avast
i think my firewall and WinDefender are on.

I've heard that these programs are good:

Malwarebyte
Advance System Care

It should be noted that the person who recomended these to me has a computer since 2003 which she uses the progs to clean it every 2-3 days. And it's working great, or so she says.

So in addition it could be awesome if anyone can give me ONE answer instead of the mixed opinions - whether or not should i clean my computer by running such software and if so which ones and how often?


Also is it true that IE is regarded as a problematic browser? I switched to Chrome without erasing IE and so far it's fairly good (except for random slow downs and sites not opening , and especially having trouble being on facebook too long )

One more question that i believe , out of anyone, you can help with: By default, the folders are presented in list-like formation and it's kinda tiring going over every folder and ordering them differently. Can I do anything to make all of the folders sort in a different way?

Last thing - and possibly one of the more important ones - my technician told me that if i were to format my PC, and i'd have at that point over 200GB taken (out of the 500 i have ), the computer will erase some of MY files as well.
If that is true - that's completely stupid. Is it ? And if so what should i do? (have one partition)

BTW I often see all kinds of short versions of words here, like BSOD, SSD, UAC and what not. It would be very nice of you, considering many of the readers don't know these terms, to simply write the full word. It doesn't take much time .
r
THANK YOU VERY MUCH !!!!!

My advice, Comodo Internet Secuirty is all you really need for Anti-Virus, Firewall (A better one then the native firewall) and anti-spyware. I suppose you could go a bit further by adding Threatfire, you'll be fine using the free versions of both. But Avast & Natives are fine if you on Windows 7 and behind a router with a built in firewall, the combo i mentioned before is better on security though, while it cost more ram, you have 4GB's of it and the amount it cost is trival in your case.

As for IE being problemtic, yea it used to be true but its been alright sense IE8 & IE9 (recommend IE9, support HTML5 & CSS3 stuff better, and it should be in your updates if you haven't ran them already).

I also recommended CCleaner its free and does a great job at cleaning your registry amongest other maintance tasks.

And if you need a suite like Microsoft Office, then I would suggest LibreOffice, its free and open source.

Not really much more that I can add, richc64 pretty much nailed it all!!

richc46 said:

Welcome

...

Download and use Ccleaner about once every two months. Untick any registry entries.
Piriform - Download CCleaner, Defraggler, Recuva, Speccy - Millions of users worldwide!

....

I've used CCleaner for a long time and cleaned the registry and have been perfectly fine O.o

If it concerns you just backup the registry everytime or at various points, your given that option when you clean the registry. And if you clean and something bad happens just restore the registry from the last backup. But again I've been using it straight and for a while and have had numerous apps and games and no problems. I find keeping the registry clean also helps a lot with keeping the system well preforming.

Didn't have a issue at all back when I tested the RC version of windows 7 either, so I dunno where this don't clean the registry stuff is coming from with ccleaner.

richc46 said:

masternetra said:

richc46 said:

Welcome

...

Download and use Ccleaner about once every two months. Untick any registry entries.
Piriform - Download CCleaner, Defraggler, Recuva, Speccy - Millions of users worldwide!

....

I've used CCleaner for a long time and cleaned the registry and have been perfectly fine O.o

If it concerns you just backup the registry everytime or at various points, your given that option when you clean the registry. And if you clean and something bad happens just restore the registry from the last backup. But again I've been using it straight and for a while and have had numerous apps and games and no problems. I find keeping the registry clean also helps a lot with keeping the system well preforming.

Thanks for your opinion, but its not mine. Seven does not need it. However, AT least one very respected member of this forum does agree with you.

Fair enough.