we rely on our computers for many different things we trust them to keep our information safe including our files and personal data that's why it's important to protect your computer and do your best to keep it running smoothly here are some tips that can help one of the biggest threats to computer safety is malware malware is any type of software that's designed to damage your computer or gain unauthorized access to your personal info this can include viruses spyware trojan horses and other malicious software windows computers macs and even chromebooks can get malware to protect your computer you should use an anti-virus program like kaspersky norton or the built-in windows defender this helps prevent viruses from being installed and also lets you scan your computer and remove any viruses that are found keep in mind no antivirus program is perfect to stay safe you should still avoid suspicious looking ads or downloads run regular updates to your anti-virus program and also run updates to your operating system to keep your computer running smoothly the latest version of windows offers a couple useful features including storage sense and defragment and optimize drives you can access both of these in settings or you can find them using the search bar when you turn it on storage sense helps you free up space on your hard drive by scanning for temporary files and other files that can be deleted once on it will run automatically in the background older versions of windows offer a similar feature called disk cleanup the fragment and optimize drives rearranges the data on your hard drive to help your computer run faster and more efficiently it should be running automatically on a weekly basis but you can easily check or change the schedule anytime if something bad does happen to your computer you could lose all of your important files to prevent this you should back up your computer regularly one option is to buy an external hard drive and copy your files to it to make this process even easier you can use software like windows backup or time machine if you're using a mac of course if something happens to your computer and your backup drive you'll still lose all of your files for more security you can use an online backup service like idrive or carbonite you may have to pay a monthly fee to use these services but the advantage is that your files will stay safe in the cloud no matter what happens to your computer following these tips can help you protect your computer and keep your information safe you can rest easy knowing that all of your files will be there when you need them gcf global creating opportunities for a better life