Slow Computer Problems

At some point in every computer owner’s life, they will experience slow computer problems. These problems could be caused by any number of factors from an overly full cache folder to a hard drive that needs to be defragmented. Of course there could be any reason for your slow computer problems, but the good news is that you might not need to send your computer off to a “specialist.” These days there are a great number of resources available that will help to teach you how to fix the problems yourself, once you know what the problem actually is.

Cookies are only good for eating. Okay that is not entirely true. Some of the cookies that get installed on your computer are good…but only some of them.

A cookie is a very small .txt (or text) file that has its own identification tag. Cookies are put into your computers by websites. Each website you visit puts a cookie onto your computer and then saves a companion file that has the same identification tag as your cookie to its server. The cookie placed on your computer can hold any amount of information from how many different pages of that particular website you visited to how much time you spent on each page. A cookie also contains the sign in name and password of each website that requires one. It is because of cookies that you can now choose to have a website remember you instead of having to keep track of an inordinate amount of user IDs and passwords.

When you go back to the site, the cookie recognizes it and lets the website know that it has a repeat visitor. The companion file that is saved on the website’s server will have the same information.

Cookies are used for any number of reasons from the storing of passwords to simple demographic information to help the website designers keep track of visitors. At any rate, cookies can take up a lot of space on your hard drive especially if you do not take care to clean out your cookie folder on a regular basis.

Think of the amount of websites you visit in a day. Each one of those sites has placed a small file on your computer. Some have cookies for each page that a site contains. That is a lot of cookies. No wonder you are having slow computer problems.

To get rid of the cookies in your cookie folder simply go to the Internet Options option of your web browser’s tools menu and from there select the “delete cookies” option. If you use Thunderbird you can clear all of your temporary files in one swoop by selecting the “clear private data” from the tools menu.

Cookies are often debated among privacy experts and nobody has yet decided whether or not they are entirely ethical. One thing is for sure, however, that some of your slow computer problems can be attributed to an overly full cookie folder. After all, all files take up space, right?

Slow Computer Problems Tip #1

Check your internet cache. Not only does every single page you look at on the internet get stored into a history folder in the depths of your computer, but every single part of those pages gets saved as a separate file in what is known as the cache folder. Yes, every single tiny graphic gets stored in its own file. That green dot that repeats twelve times as an illustration of bullet points? Twelve separate gif files in your cache. Make sure you clean out the cache often.

Slow Computer Problems Tip #2

Ad ware is the devil. Ad ware can be attached to your computer by any number of sites (though it is most famously used by sites of an "adult" nature). This ad ware keeps track of where you go online like a cookie does, but ad ware is typically a covert program that slows down the computer to make it easier to track where you go. Run a spy ware or ad aware program on a regular basis to keep these programs and files at bay.

Slow Computer Problems Tip #3

Defragment your hard drive regularly. Sometimes parts of your files get corrupted. The more files that are corrupted or "fragmented," the more slowly your computer will run. A defragmentation of your hard drive should be done on a regular basis. It is a long process, so the defragmenting program is best run overnight.