New Laptop, wanna keep clean

What are the best programs that will keep my new laptop (XP Dell) alive and fast? I have microsoft security center and I am currently using, the microsoft firewall, Anti Vir PC Classic, and I have Ad-Aware. Is this a good start or do I need to change some things?

 

Use Mozilla Firefox's internet browser which gives more control over scripts when surfing.

Get NoScript for an extension which is excellent.

 

what do scripts do?

 

try never connecting to the internet. thats the safest way in the world. a friend of mine has one laptop that never has connected and its spick and span clean. but most people dont want to do that nowadays

 

Assuming you're planning on actually using your computer, including email and the internet, I would suggest:

Ad-aware is good, but everything I've read suggests that multiple programs are needed for spyware because no one program does it all (what a drag)

Spybot--similar to ad-aware but with some monitoring/blocking functions (freeware)
Spywareblaster--monitoring/blocking only (freeware)
I'm also playing with Ewido and Windows Defender--haven't decided about their usefulness yet (Ewido free; WD free in beta...)

Registry Mechanic--repairs and cleans the registry which constantly gets mucked up with garbage; never had a problem with it damaging my registry

Ccleaner--cleans up after you, also has simple registry repair function

===> Diskeeper (a must have)--apparently this is the software that MS took its defragmenter from: but this is the complete software. Wonderful software. Works in the background with minimal impact to keep fragmentation at a minimum. Also can be set to do a "boot time defragment"; files that are made inaccesible by windows are defragmented.

All I can think of now.

 

When you install something you need e.g. dvd software or cd burning software watch out they dont silently put stuff in your start up folder or have start up services.

For example, I have Nero and PowerDVD both of which have start up tasks that i disabled in msconfig. My start up is still fast and those programs work fine. Same thing with Adobe Reader and Quicktime.

 

Spybot and Spyware Blaster are good for blocking spyware, just make sure you update and immunize.

I like to use Ewido once a month on my computer. I restart in safe mode and scan my computer, and no matter how clean I think my machine is, Ewido always seems to find stuff.

 

Surf the web in a Virtual Machine.

 

ty a lot guys! I was looking thought and i found this website...
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=44525

 

windows firewall is kinda useless
i have this set up and nothing has ever gone wrong with mine

Zone Alarm Firewall - a little tedious at first but once you set it up it works great
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en

Windows Defender - works really well, lets you control what programs auto run so speeds up start time
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Avast - montitors in real time for added security
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

Firefox - safer and tabbed browsing
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

hope those help

 

forgot to add ccleaner
good for using after deleting all the **** dell gives you to start with
http://majorgeeks.com/download4191.html

 

microsoft antispy is a good protector, but you can only have so much. Use a multi-layered defense such as also using a anti-virus and also stay with firefox. Much more safer than IE.