Explaing software utilities. P3

Disk Cleanup:

Disk cleanup is a maintenance utility which is designed to free disk space on the computer’s hard drive.

How it works?

The cleanup process firstly involves searching and analyzing the hard drive for files which are no longer of use. It then proceeds to remove the unnecessary files, which is how it frees the space on the hard drive. Disk cleanup targets at many different file categories when performing the initial disk analysis and gives you the opportunity to choose which files you do not want to delete.

Below are the categories you can choose from:

· Compression of old files – Compressed files doesn’t delete files from the drive. It compresses files which the user has not gone on for a specific time. However next time they are accessed they will be decompressed.

· Temporary internet files – These are the internet cache of web pages which are stored on the hard drive for quick access.

· Temporary windows file

· Downloaded program files – These are files which are stored in the downloaded programs file folder; these files are the ActiveX controls and Java applets which are downloaded from web sites.

· Recycle bin – These are files which have been selected and deleted.

· Offline files – These are files which are available offline, however it can contain outdated information and many more

Why use disk cleanup?

Disk cleanup is used so the computer can free space of unnecessary wanted files which are on the computer system and are no longer needed.

Virus Protection:

Virus protection is on computer systems and can already be installed or can be installed from the internet. Virus protection is used to stop virus, worms or Trojan trying to enter the computer system.

How it works?

Virus protection is used to identify and remove viruses. Many of the anti-virus software’s uses signatures, identifying piece of code found in a virus. However, instead of attempting to try to relate a virus with a signature, heuristic technologies may look at a programs code or actions for potential damaging code or even actions. However, sometimes an anti virus may not be able to track the virus as it may have not been updated.

There are other ways in which identification of virus can be done such as:

Signature based detection which is the common method to identify viruses and other malware. It compares the contents of a file to a dictionary of virus signatures, this is because viruses can embed themselves in existing files, the entire file is searched and not just as a whole but also in pieces.

Malicious activity detection is also another way to identify malware. This system monitors the system for suspicious program behaviour. If any suspicious behaviours is detected, the program will then be investigated more further using other methods to make sure it is something to be worried about.

File Analysis is the process of searching a suspected file for a virus like instruction. However the downside to this is that it needs to analyse every single file.

Why use Virus Protection:

Virus protection is used to identify and remove a virus as well as other types of harmful computer software, which can corrupt the system and the data.