Help I have Pop Ups And My Computer Is Running Very Slow

  I hear that from so may people it is getting to be very ridiculous. The first thing I would suspect is that your computer has become infected. It may be infected with a Virus, Malware, Spyware and Adware. These kinds of infections are extremely popular these days. Most people want to know how did I get this and where did it come from. The usual response is also I have Good Virus Software   such as Mcafee, Nortons Antivirus, Kaspersky, Avast, AVG, Microsoft Security Essentials and those are just some of the antivirus software available. Now there is nothing wrong with any of these programs. They all do a fine job of protecting a computer.


  Okay so why or how can I become infected if I have one of these programs. Another question is what is the Best Virus Software . Well the answer is none of these programs will protect your computer 100% of the time. It does not matter where you go these days, infections are all over the place. They come in through social websites such a facebook. They can come in through a temporary internet file or from an email.  That is why one of the best things I can advise is to always back up your computer. You can do it with an external hard drive and use the back up and restore in windows 7, which does a good job. If you have windows 8.1 this will be a different story. Windows 8.1 does not have the same back up and restore like windows 7. What they do have is a way to make a system image to a external hard drive and you also can have the Documents, Music, Favorites, Desktop, Contacts, Email etc backed up. It can be set at certain times such as daily. The image back up is a manual process, it does not run on a schedule. The files back up does run on a schedule.
  The way to get to these back up choices in windows 8.1 is to move the mouse or finger to the upper right side so you can access the search. Type in file history and click on it to go to it. It can also be accessed by going to the control panel and selecting file history. You can then choose to perform the image back up. This may take a few moments to run. You can then select to set up the files back up and turn it on, by default it is turned off. I can not tell you how well this will work since I have not had to restore any systems using this yet.
  The couple types of back up methods are a third party software such as Nortons Ghost or Acronis. They are booth good pieces of software and do a fine job. The other method of backing up is the cloud method. One of the most popular is carbonite. Just make sure of what package you choose. Some do not do as much as others. There are quite a few different cloud backing up methods, but I have not used them yet.
  If you are going to clean your own computer there are a few programs I would suggest to use. I would download Combofix to use with windows 7. It does not run in windows 8 or 8.1  at this time, but I hope they will get it going soon. I would have free Malwarebytes, Spybot 2.3 Portable, Tdsskiller.exe , Super AntiSpyware Portable, Portable Eset Online Scanner, Clamwin Portable, A-squared, Norton Power Eraser, Adware Removal Tool and Hirens 15.1 and Hirens 15.2. These all can be downloaded off the internet. Save them to a folder and run them in the safe mode. Hirens are a iso file that can be burned to a cdr disk using burning software such as Nero 12. You can boot off these, acquire a network connection and run them. Super Anti Spyware has to be started first in Hirens, close it and then you can run the current version. It is best to run all these programs from the safe mode, but if you can not enter the normal or safe mode use the Hirens cd. Another option is to set up a temporary fresh load on a good hard drive, connect your drive and then run the programs. When done reconnect your hard drive and see if you can boot off it, then rerun the scans.
   I would also advise that combofix and the current version of malwarebytes  will not run off Hirens. If you are not comfortable with performing a virus cleaning yourself, then take it to a professional. Just remember to look for any reviews on the place you choose before you go there. There are many places that just want to take your money. They offer what look like good deals, but could be more costly in the long run.
  The final cause of the slowness can be the hard drive in the computer. It may have developed bad sectors or bad clusters. I have also seen bad memory or not enough memory cause the slowness problem. It seems that quite a bit of the time I see an infected computer as well as a defective hard drive. If the desktop or laptop is more than 3 to 5 years old consider replacing the machine. It may not be cost effective in the long run.
  Well that's all for now so remember Back Up Your Data and Stay Safe.