My iMac is really slow to boot up once I have typed in my ID

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Level 1

4 points

My iMac is really slow to boot up once I have typed in my ID

Hi There,

Could someone please tell me why my iMac is slow to boot up, once I put in my Password? I have 180GB of pictures, 1,000 emails. I have an external Hard Drive connected & a CD/DVD Rewriter connected. I clear my cache often & cookies. I have loads of stuff on Bookmarks. I don't know if clearing my History will help? I don't have many programmes that open, when I boot up. I have Avast Free Anti Virus (could it be that)? I do not have a Virus. Once the Homepage opens, it is really fast. It is just that long wait between inserting my password & then waiting quite a while for the Homepage to come on screen. I would be really grateful if someone could tell me what to do? or a serious of checks I could do? Thank you for reading my Help letter & hope someone has the knowledge to put things right for me. Thank you James

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Jun 28, 2016 10:36 AM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Jun 28, 2016 1:46 PM in response to workingitout

"Avast" is the worst of the whole wretched lot of commercial "security" products for the Mac. Not only does it fail to protect you from any real danger, it may send personal data (such as web browsing history and the contents of email messages) back to the developer without your knowledge, give false warnings, destabilize and slow down the computer, expose you to network attack, and corrupt the network settings and the permissions of files in your home folder. Removing it may not repair all the damage.

Some versions of the product also inject advertising into web pages. In short, apart from the fine print in the license agreement, Avast is indistinguishable from malware, and is arguably worse than any known malware now in circulation.

Please back up all data, then remove Avast according to the developer's instructions. Restart. Never install any "anti-virus" or "anti-malware" software again.

If you tried to remove Avast by dragging an application to the Trash, you'll have to reinstall it and then follow the instructions linked above.

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