Unit 2 D1

Expand on your notes for Task 3 explaining the purpose of different software utilities to explain how each can improve the performance of a computer system. You need to cover:


Security Virus Protection and Firewalls



Anti-virus software is very important in order to keep your computer secure and to a high performance. Viruses can cause real harm to a computer such as removing or destroying vital data, slowing down a computer or shutting down a computer. Anti-virus software’s are used identify potential threats to a computer system and block them; however some viruses encrypt themselves to be different every time, making it impossible to detect.


A firewall is another form of security that can be added onto a computer. Firewalls act as a barrier to keep destructive elements out of a network or a specific computer. They are configured to block or prevent unauthorised access to a network. They work as filters for your network traffic by blocking incoming packets of information that are seen as unsafe. like anti-virus software it is very important therefore to make sure that you've got protection from the kind of things like malicious software so that the performance of the network or computer can remain as high as possible.


Clean up tools for removal of cookies/internet history/defragmentation

While cookie files are quite small, they can still build up and slow down your system performance. When too many cookies accumulate, those unneeded files can bog down the system and result in it running more slowly than it should. It is important to take the time to delete the cookies to increase the speed and performance of your web browsing software. 

Removing all internet history will increase the general performance of a computer; it will be able to run faster because there is less data stored on to the system. It is also useful to do this if you are on a public computer as you can remove all information related to you from the system. This can be especially important if it is financial information.

Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Disk defragmentation rearranges fragmented data so your hard disk can work more efficiently. Disk defragmenter runs on a schedule but you can also defragment your hard disk manually or change the times in which it does this. It puts files that have been fragmented back together so that they can be read faster.

Drive Formatting

Over time a computer’s hard drive may experience malfunctions due to wear and tear, viruses, or other programs that bog down the PC. To maintain and resolve performance issues, reformatting the hard drive annually is advisable. After formatting a hard drive and re installing the operating system, software program conflicts or glitches should disappear, and the computer’s performance will improve to a large extent.