I have a 14" ibook g4 133gh 60gb hdd with 768gb of ram. I put avast av on it and the computer has slowed down a lot. Could it be that I do not have enough memory or is it that the program stays running in the backgraound. The ibook was running fine tell I put the program on so is it me or do i need more memory. I have about 34gb free space on the hard drive so I know its not that. I just really need to know if others had the same problem. Please remember I have only had this ibook for about three days. So i am new to how the machine works. So far it is a good laptop.
ibook g4 14" 1.33gh 60gb hd,
Mac OS X (10.5.8),
iphone 3g 8gb and 3gs 16gb
The only real reasons to have antivirus on a Mac are:
1) If your school or workplace requires you to have such software
2) If you want to be nice to your friends running Windows and prevent the spread of Windows viruses.
For either case, ClamXAV is a great solution--it won't slow down your computer, and it's free! You can get this at versiontracker.com or macupdate.com.
You could look into the utility folder and launch Activity Monitor to see where the
system resources are going; some of the items there should be transparent, but
some of the names of system-related parts running are many and oddly named.
Usage of RAM, capacities of used and free space on the hard disk drive, what
is running in the background, network connections, etc are available to be seen.
The fact your computer runs worse after installing that avast thing, implies a load.
And most of it sounds unnecessary. Keeping on top of the few known Mac bugs
and how to find/remove them is more useful than something too top-heavy.
There are informative apps such as Little Snitch (to see if your computer is online
or doing things, going places, you should know about) and a thing called DNS
Change removal tool; that may find useful purpose at some time or another.
Another item, works in a limited mode in demo, is called What Size.
To avoid web sites that offer to scan your computer, is also standard advice; since
they do not offer anything other than a chance for someone to look into it. And
those things can be a source of trouble, going to unsecure web pages or clones
of real ones, where the user of an account may enter private information into a
fake web site and have it harvested for identity or financial theft of services, etc.
Keep your web browsers up to date, the system/security updates, up to date;
and check your Firewall settings to be sure unnecessary ports are closed.
