Maintaining your PC

I was talking to a friend over the weekend about their PC not performing very well and we began talking about how to maintain the equipment's performance. My recommendations are in line with what I understand to be generally accepted as best practice. What I do breaks down into about 6 major steps. Here they are...

You can google each of these section titles yourself for more information. This is more or less targeted on what you need to be maintaining and cleaning up regularly.

Browser Temporary Internet Files
Go into your default browser. For that matter, all of your browsers. Navigate into the Tools and Settings and clear or delete you Temporary Internet Files. You should really have this set to delete every time you close the browser or on a regular schedule about every week or so. You can research more information regarding what is stored here on your own. I am not a security expert, so I am not going to make up a list.

Browser Cookies
This is more or less the same as above. You should be deleting these regulary as well. Either every time you close your browser or on a regular schedule. Deleting your cookies can be done from within the Tools and Settings area of your browser as well. If your browser presents the options, you should also remove any history, saved passwords and other web information. If you are thinking, "Why would I want to do this?" Ask yourself, "Do you write the password to your garage door entry pad on your garage door?"

Operating System Updates
You should be checking your Operating System for updates every few months if not a lot sooner. For example, if you are a Windows user, go to the Windows Update site and run the wizard to check for updates.

Antivirus Software Updates
You should be checking your Antivirus company for updates as well.

Third Party Utilities
There are other third party tools to help you clean up your system. CCleaner is a great example.

And if you get really adventourus, investigate all of the programs you have set for startup. This can be found in MSConfig (Go to Run > Command Prompt > msconfig > Startup). But, be really careful as there are lots of items to screw up here.