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Software Utilities
Introduction

Software Utilities
A software utility is system software where it helps to analyse and configure to maintain the computer. Software utilities are an important key factor of a basic PC . It ensures the PC to work in a smooth way. There are various types of software utilities. Some of them are mentioned below.
*Virus Protection*

- Virus Protection- The main purpose of virus protection is to safe guard the computer from harmful viruses. It is always vital to have a protection so that all the important data are safe. It does this by scanning thoroughly downloads or attachments for viruses and by running in the background when a user is browsing the internet. Whenever the user access any suspicious website unwillingly, the program will warn the user and give options for getting rid of it before it starts destroying the computer.
Antivirus software is a computer program that detects, prevents, and takes action to disarm or remove malicious software programs, such as viruses and worms. You can help protect your computer against viruses by using antivirus software, Nowadays computers are at a risk, mainly because of virus and also by human hackers as these virus and hackers get into our PCs and control them or corrupt all our data. So to prevent that, we have a program named ANTI-VIRUS, Firewall and more.

So these anti-viruses protect our computers from being hacked or corrupted. There are many sections of anti-virus soft wares available in the market. As the virus gets stronger and stronger the anti-virus will also have their updates and kills/destroys the virus from our computer.
Some of the popular Anti-Virus Softwares are Norton, Kaspersky and BitDefender.

Firewall- A firewall is designed to restrict access to a network. If a user is operating with a firewall, it’s most likely to notice that when the user loads up certain programs on the computer, they start receiving warnings from the firewall software which indicates about a virus threat. However some of the programs can be configured automatically by the firewall to allow program up dates and any other routine work.
- Clean up tools- Some parts of the system becomes messed up with old installation details and temporary files. So, a system clean up tool will search the computer for settings which are no longer needed. Running this utility regularly can help improve the performance and speed up the boot-up line so that the computer starts up faster.

Other types of Software Utilities

- Disk Defragmentation- this increases access speed by rearranging files to store on a disk to occupy “contigous” storage locations technically known as Defragmenting. The purpose of this is to read and write files to/from a disk. Also this improves system start up speed.

- Screen-savers-this is a type of computer program initially designed to prevent “phosphor burn-in” on CRT and plasma computer monitors by blanking the screen or filling it with moving images or any sort of patterns when the computer is not in use. The main purpose of this is to prevent the CRT monitor from “etching” where the image of the screen remains would stay on the screen.

Use of software utilities to improve the performance of computer systems
It is important to maintain the computer on a regular basis to help prevent system crashes and to optimize computers performance. Just as a car has an oil change, your computer operating system, known as "Windows" needs regular attention. Software utilities offer security in the form of virus protection and firewalls, McAfee’s total Protection service and zone Alarm Antivirus. Ways to improve are explained below.

VIRUS PROTECTION: This has been mentioned earlier. The antivirus software vendors maintain a database of information about viruses, their