This is the third article in this series. In case you missed them, here’s the first and second.

Malware

Malware, or malicious software, can be defined as a program designed to harm your computer or grant unauthorized access to it. One of the possible reasons for your computer being slow is malware running in it. In fact I’d dare say, if your computer is running at normal speed and it slows down all of a sudden, most likely it’s due to a malware infection. Conversely, not all malware slow computers down. At least not noticeably. In any case it holds true that one of the signs of an infected computer is sluggish performance. Probably the worst cause of a computer slowdown is malware, because not only will your computer be slow, but it won’t be totally under your control anymore! What to do? Naturally the computer needs to be disinfected. I’m assuming you have an anti-malware solution in place. Run a full scan. If nothing is found but you still suspect your computer is infected. you can try free online scanners such as Panda’s, Trend Micro’s, BitDefender’s, Kaspersky’s, Microsoft’s, Eset’s, to name a few. These can sometimes detect what your installed antivirus missed. Note that depending on the nature and severity of the infection, the malware might block access to security companies’ websites to prevent detection and removal. So if the above links don’t work, that’s probably the reason why. Once all the normal basic routines are unsuccessful in removing a resilient infection, it’s time to contact an expert to get the computer cleaned up. This is when the handling enters the realm of advanced manual malware removal techniques. Look for my soon-to-be-released article on how to best prevent getting infected in the first place and what is the best product to achieve that. Due to how relevant it is, that will be the next article to be published, and after that I’ll continue with the rest of this computer slowness series. Update 7/29/09: Here it is.