Software Utillities P3

One software utility is security which is protection against viruses which is called Anti- Virus Software. Anti- Virus Software protect again Malware which is Viruses, worms, Trojans, adware etc, I will be explaining about them. A virus is a programme that is unwanted on someone’s computer, they can range from something minor such as a virus that is just annoying such as loads of pop ups, then to could go to something more terrible such as the virus might cause applications to stop working. The best way to protect your computer you have to update you Anti-Virus Software every day because there might be a new virus made every day. There are also something called a worm which is something that once opened by the user of the computer replicate themselves and damages all the files, they can be opened because they look like attachments on emails. A Trojan is a programme that have an unwanted hidden function, one example is one can actually delete files from the computer. Another virus which isn’t the serious just annoying is Adware which is when a load of adverts pop up on the screen and the user of the computer has to close them all down because they can do anything on the computer. Because of Anti-Virus Software the people that design the virus have to make ones that will not be detected by the Anti- Virus Software, this is called Polymorphic Virus which is constantly changing to make it go unnoticed. All these things are an offence of the Computer Misuse Act of 1990.

Another software utility which protects the computer is a Firework, they are not used to protect against viruses but against hackers and worms. The Firewall does this by closing certain ports to protect the files on the computer. There are two types of hackers’ one, White hat hacker which is the legal hacker and hacks to fix problems and the second one is called the Black hat hacker which hacks to cause damage to the computer.

One other software utility is Clean up tools. Whenever you do something on a web browser there are temporary files made in order for the user so they don’t have to keep going over what they have done, they can go straight to where they left off. Also some websites have Cookies which also creates files about the website and sometimes help for easy use of the website. This is all sorts as web history and the user can use it. But if there are too many files it can slow down the performance of the computer, so the Clean-up tools get rid of the files that don’t need to be there, also the files only last a certain amount of time before they are cleaned away. This also happens with the operating system when it does things temporary files are made and they have to be cleaned up in order to make the performance of the computer better. All these files are stored on the hard disk drive.

Defragmentation is when you save this the get saved into sections on the hard disk drive. Fragmentation is when the files are stored in different sections of the disk and it tasks a long time to load the file because the pin has to physically move. So defragmentation is when the files are reorganised so they are all together and they can be opened quicker.

Drive formatting is preparing a drive to receive data. There is a low one which physically deletes the files from the disk. Then there is a high one which makes the disk look like it is blank.