Worried about safeguarding your children, your computer, and your important data in today’s connected world?

My Computer is slow on the Internet; Do I Need a New One?

Usually the answer is no. The most basic computer is acceptable for accessing the Internet. It does not take a lot of processing power, disk storage space or memory to display web sites. When it was new was it fast enough?

Then why is my computer connection to the Internet so slow lately? The main problem has been increasing over the past few years. Ads and spyware, loaded with or without your approval as you use the Internet. In the past, ads were displayed on a page as you visited the web site. Nothing was loaded on your computer. Now almost every web site loads something onto your computer as you visit their site.

What are they loading, and why does it slow your computer? Most of the items can be separated into two categories; spyware and popup ads. As an example, say you visit a book store online. The site loads popup ads about its services and specials. Later that week, you visit Google and type “bookstores” into the search. The popup ad software recognizes the word bookstore when you searched in Google, and a popup window displays the ads from the bookstore. Now imagine many popup ads watching where you go and waiting to popup their ads. This takes time and computer resources to process this information. The number of popup ads I have seen loaded in the past can run into the hundreds, even thousands!

Then there is Spyware. I explain this as tracking software that saves all of the websites you visit, for use later. Why, you may ask? Marketing and a free buck. For example, you visit www.yourname.com , an imaginary site. A spyware program is loaded and will see all of the web sites you visit after that, and keep a list of them. The next time you visit www.yourname.com the information is downloaded to their website. They now have a list of the web sites you visited. They can then sell information for marketing, such as “70% of the people who visited Sears.com also visited toolsRus.com” Now Sears knows which web sites to place their ads! All of this also takes time and processing power. Not much, but as tracking programs are added, more and more demands are placed on your system.

We have not even touched on the malicious software, things that can make it look like you are visiting your bank account, and steal your login information! There are some really mean and evil people out there on the Internet!

What can you do? Is virus software enough? NO! You need to have a procedure for removing spyware and adware from your computer, on a regular basis. There are many programs available, some are not really removal programs, but spyware themselves! The best thing is search websites of the popular computer magazines and look at their recommendations

▪ By Oneal Davidson