So your superfast computer is working at turtle’s speed.  You can’t click on the “x” box fast enough to rid your screen of popups.  More than likely you have been infected with malware, malicious programs designed to interfere with the normal function of your computer and perhaps worse, is stealing personal information from you.  But you have virus protection on your computer and even keep it up-to-date.  Yet you are plagued with problems that you thought your virus protection should have stopped.  First before you throw your computer out the window feeling your computer that you thought was fully protected failed you consider that your virus protection is not designed to catch malicious programs that are installed unsuspectingly onto your computer.  That is the clue.  Virus protection programs are designed to catch viruses and some Trojans but not spyware.

However help is at hand, there are programs out there that are designed specifically to catch and remove malware from your computer.  They function about in the same way as your virus protection program works.  They scan your computer looking for compromises and then remove those that are found.  Just like a virus protection program they need to be kept updated frequently to be most effective in keeping your computer clean.  In your search for a program that will clean and protect your computer from malicious malware you will find there are hundreds of programs out there on the market.  But buyer beware, many of those programs are useless as they are ineffective in seeking out malware and can miss the most recent versions and variations of malicious software that evolve to evade legitimate malware detection programs.  There are even malware programs that guise themselves as malware removal programs, but instead of removing them you just added more to your computer.  Use only trusted malware removal programs that have won awards from independent third party reviews and are a member of the Better Business Bureau.

Programs such as ZookaWare PC Cleaner are designed to work along side your antivirus.  Although you can download the program for free and do a scan of your computer, any malicious malware the program detects can not be removed until you buy the product and pay a yearly fee to keep the updates current just like your virus protection.  Also look for programs that contain realtime protection.

If you are an avid surfer of the internet and do much of your personal business, like shopping and banking online, having a virus and malware protection is vital to the protection of your information and wellbeing of your computer.