Hassle free internet

Does surfing the net take so long it drives you nuts? You know, you click on a link and wait so long for the page to show up that you have time to make a cup of coffee, wait for it to cool, drink it up and finally the page you have been waiting for shows up.

It wasn't so bad when you first got your computer.

Surfing was smoother. The wait was bearable. What happened? More importantly, what can you do about it?

Defragment your hard disk

If that sound Greek to you, don't worry. What that means is that you have been saving and deleting files, installing and uninstalling programs so much over the months (or years?) that what is actually in your pc's hard disk is very disorganized.

To fix that problem, simply defragment your hard disk. Note, this will take hours, so do it at the end of the day and leave your pc on overnight as it tidies up the mess.

On a windows 98 pc, do the following.

	Close all the applications on your pc. Close all the windows on your pc before you even start.
	Click on start, programs, accessories, system tools, disk defragmenter.
	Select all hard drives. Click ok
	Let it run.
	The next morning, you can stop it. By then, your hard disks should be better organized and your pc use in general will be faster.

Spyware and BHOs

Spyware and Browser Help Objects (BHOs) can slow down your internet use considerably.

As you surf the web, some websites may download applications that can slow down your pc considerably. You know, those error message windows that pop up telling you to click ok to download something to fix your pc. Beware of those.

The intention of these applications is usually to serve ads of their choice on your pc. They get paid by advertisers to serve ads on your pc as you surf the web, based on your surfing habits. They put those ads on the sites you visit, so you think that these are the places those sites recommend.

As you surf the web, these applications will send information about your movements back to their source, using your pc resources, hence slowing down your pc, making internet seem slower than ever.

I found out about these when I went to www.parasiteware.com There is software readily available that can clean up your pc, and rid your pc of these programs. Check out the free ad-aware program from www.lavasoft.de. X-blocker is another good alternative.

Cookies? Those are harmless text files that websites use to facilitate their programming. Things like shopping carts when you buy things from merchant and other such applications often need cookies to facilitate the flow of information. Many spyware removing software may flag cookies as spyware so that they look more effective. They appear to target more spyware than their competitors. What you should be worried about is the APPLICATIONS that are downloaded into your PC. Now those are the culprits that slow down your computer considerably.

After I cleaned my pc using a spyware remover program, surfing the net was very smooth. Much faster than before.

Applications downloading themselves into your pc often happens when you use Microsoft internet explorer. These BHOs are able to tag on to internet explorer and get into your PC. When I switched to netscape to surf the net, the internet seemed so much faster. These BHOs don't seem able to function with netscape. They seem unable to download themselves into my pc when I stick solely to netscape. Got that tip from a friend. Not sure how, but it really works.

Ethernet

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Wireless networking

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