It’s a brand new year, and as exciting as it is, it also means your PC is now a year older. While it still has enough power to do what you need it to, if a brand new laptop or desktop upgrade isn’t in the budget this year, there are still ways to optimize the performance of your PC without breaking the bank.
If you’ve owned a PC for a few years, you realize it looks a lot like your car. It needs specialist protection, new parts and the occasional tune-up to keep it performing optimally. A key component of optimized PC, laptop or mobile device performance is security software that doesn’t hog resources or slow you down.
It’s a great analogy, but one cybersecurity giant that clearly sees it that way is Bitdefender, which late last year announced a multi-year partnership with Scuderia Ferrari.(Opens in a new tab). Bitdefender’s cybersecurity products, in particular, focus on optimization, providing a massive suite of security tools while maintaining a light touch on your hardware.
A holistic approach to your Internet security is the best way to not only protect your PC, but also to keep it running fast (and in some cases, even improving its basic performance). If you run a variety of applications from different developers to build your security stack, there will inevitably be some overlap in what these different programs scan or track. This wastes valuable processing power and slows down your system as a whole.
While this is certainly a Bitdefender goal, this advantage is not entirely exclusive to them. Most security suites on the market today can improve performance when used correctly. The basic idea is that you don’t want to mix and match too much. To use the car analogy again, you don’t want to risk installing a mix of parts that don’t work well together.
Internet security has an insidious reputation for slowing down your computer too much, and common sense is enough to protect you when you’re online and keep your PC running fast. Cybersecurity companies are working hard to combat this misconception and downright dangerous.
If you’re just using standard Windows Defender on your home PC, for example, you’re really only doing the bare minimum to protect your computer from malware. This default software will do nothing against a sophisticated ransomware attack, which will encrypt and lock all your personal files under threat of deletion, unless you pay. These types of attacks have become increasingly common in recent years, and to combat them you need dedicated security software.
All-in-one security suites also allow you to ensure that you are passively keeping up to date with trends in the world of cybersecurity and the never-ending arms race against malware and ransomware.
If you’re trying to keep your PC performing at its best, a dedicated security suite such as PCMag Editors’ Choice Bitdefender Total Security(Opens in a new tab) is a must. Bitdefender not only offers the best malware protection available, but also a range of tools to mitigate ransomware and protect your information. It’s cross-OS and device access, so you can protect all your devices, and comes with 200MB VPN access per day per device. You can also upgrade your plan to Bitdefender Premium Security Plus(Opens in a new tab)which offers unlimited VPN access, digital identity protection to protect your personal data in the event of a data breach, and an encrypted password manager to help you keep track of all your passwords in one secure location .
For more information on Bitdefender Total Security, read PCMag’s full review here or visit their website(Opens in a new tab).