“This week I had planned to continue with my series on online business. But, I had to stop to tell you this, stop downloading all that garbage off the net!What I am talking about are all those little maintenance programs that promise to clean out the spyware or improve system performance. You know, System this and Registry that or Spyware this or Destroy that (usually your machine). I know you have all seen them. They make claims about how great they are and what a wonderful job they do. Don’t believe it. Just because they say so does not make it true.Now don’t get me wrong, there are good programs out there. But for the most part, even the ones with good intention just don’t deliver or conflict with other software on the system. They are not written well, properly tested or rushed to market. There are many malicious ones out there too that disguise themselves as system software but also as little devices to bring you weather or news. These usually hide marketing and tracking software that compete for your internet connection. I had several come through the shop this week. That is why I write this article. One system to come in had downloaded a Spyware blocker. All it did was slow his system to a crawl. A major loss of system performance is a sure sign you got a bad one. Fortunately, we removed it without much trouble. Another computer came in with a “Registry Cleaner”. After he installed and ran it the system developed a boot issue. The system was looking for a file no longer there. So what does he do? Download another to fix it! So please don't download unless you know what you are downloading and can be assured that it is a program that won't hurt your computer.”