Is Corporate Malware slowing my computer?

[John Wagenseil]

I am peeved.

I use an old computer that has a slow CPU, not much memory, and very little free space on the hard drive, to cruise internet. It runs XP.

I noticed recently that it had periodic slowdowns to the point where it froze up, and occasionally would shut down and reboot and then be unusable for minutes on end. The culprit was Windows Update. I eventually found out how to change settings so that it would not reboot and do an update/install without permission, but even downloading updates in the background is a resource hog on an old machine and makes it almost unusable while the files are being downloaded.
Windows Update is unfriendly to older machines or at least my old computer, since it acts like an old style virus and slows everything to a crawl.

Also I found that my browsers would eventually freeze after cruising internet for awhile: clearing out the browsing history would help, but not completely cure the problem. The only way I could get browsing speed back was to shut down the browser, run CCleaner or EasyClean and reboot.
I tried using Firefox with blocking extensions and got some improvement ,but found that some sites had so much Flash and java script that they would overwhelm the blocking software and again Firefox would freeze.

And I found my limited disk space was being filled up with background downloads of all sorts of temp files.

At this point I tried running my browser in a sandbox. It was not fast but I did not experience the eventual browser freeze out that I had before.

I was also appalled when I saw all the files that were being downloaded into the sandboxed memory space. After one session I had accumulated almost 500Mbytes of temp files ,cache files, cookies, flash cookies, assorted java scripts and other file types I could not identify.

It is my computer, it is my disk space, who is trespassing on it installing all these files that are using up CPU cycles and making my computer inoperable? I know some of the sites we frequent are financed by ad revenue, but ads grabbing most of my computers CPU cycles is wrong.

And what are all those files being deposited on my computer? Most do not register as malware with anti virus software, yet they are slowing my computer down, which is acting like malware.

I am now going to do my internet browsing using a sandboxed browser, or start using my other computer which has decent RAM and use Linux running only in RAM with the Hard Drives unmounted and do my downloads to a USB thumb drive.

Has anyone else noticed a similar problem? Does anyone know what all the files that are leaking through the browsers onto our hard drives do? Are they sending information back to corporate HQ? Am I needlessly worried or insufficiently paranoid?

[papersmithforge]

Most modern internet technology "hijacks" your computer's processor cycles. The idea presumably is that you don't have to visit someone's webpage, nor does your computer ever have to log on to the web for that matter. Thus, websites take the "liberty" of doing as they wish. Javascript, Flash, ActiveX, etc. are all client-side technologies which do this. This very website uses javascript. If you want to speed up your browsing, most modern browsers give you the ability to turn off javascript and other such plug-ins. However, that means the website may not function as intended and you may not be able to access certain features.

Most Windows sytems start to experience bloat after a given amount of time transpires. That is the nature of the OS. Updates to them assume that hardware has upgraded after a given amount of time has elapsed (months/years), much in the way that older computers could run with 256 MB RAM or some such and now require 4 GB. The PS3 no longer allows an alternative OS to be installed. If you wish to continue using the online features and such they force you to upgrade and this is the price you pay.

Your use of the term malware is inaccurate though. Malware is intended to damage your computer, that is it's purpose. Slowdown, bloat, and any other such errors that may transpire are simply an accepted computing practice nowadays. The EULA typically stipulates what you're responsible for, but waives any damage your system may suffer as a result of using the software. Is this ethical? Probably not, but it is the accepted practice.

If this older computer of yours can no longer handle Windows XP amiably, you may want to consider installing an alternative Linux OS since you only use it for web browsing.

[3Turner]

John, do you know the exact specs of the computer? Processor speed, RAM amount version of XP? If you have any extra space available, buy some sticks of RAM and put them in. It will help some.

Hit Ctrl + ALt+ Del and start up the Windows Task Manager....see if you can tell what is eating up all your resources. You may be able to see what is running in the background....and also see how much of the resources Firefox takes up. If I have several tabs open myself, Firefox slows down and is taking up 150K or more of my memory usage.

Have you tried any other browsers? Chrome, Internet Explorer etc... Are the same results? You only specifically mentioned Firefox.

As for the browser stuff, if using Firefox, the only plug-in you really need is NoScript. It will stop all Flash and Java from being loaded onto a site until you allow it to be loaded. For websites you frequent, you can click on the little icon on the bottom right and allow only the scripts you want to load for the webpage...or allow the domain, but not the extra stuff.

Check to make sure in Firefox how many add-ons and plug-ins you have....if there are many loading up, that can surely bog down the browser.

You can also go into the Firefox options and under Privacy, click the box to clear cookies each time you close Firefox. While in there, make sure that the box for third party cookies is UNCHECKED. This will help cut down on the cookies. For example, if you got onto papermodelers here and signed on, a cookie would be put on your computer....which is what you want for any site you visit and sign in. BUT the third party cookies are the ones placed by advertisers...some of them tracking cookies. Once you get a lot of these browsing around, the TEMP file does get really really large and could start hogging resources if the browser is checking for cookies as the pages are loading.

I saw you mentioned that you ran CCleaner and Easyclean which is good to run every so often. Have you also tried Lavasoft AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy? Those are two programs I run about once a month or so.

[southwestforests]

The above and just simply that the modern web is designed for the multi-tasking capabilities of the processors in modern machines.

[Thomas Meek]

John;
I have had similar problems with XP, and a few days ago I disabled Windows Automatic Update, which helps a lot.
It would need to "check for updates" which means that it would have to fire up Explorer, (which I already don't use because it is so slow,) and then check for the updates which takes a godawful long time. Then have to shut down Explorer. It was frustratin', I tell ya!
It is my understanding that Microsoft no longer supports XP, which means no more updates anyway (somebody correct me if I am mistaken, please) so the whole thing was a useless gyration.
I was sitting here going crazy while my hard drive ratcheted away for 10, 15 minutes while the machine wasn't supposed to be doing anything at all. Now it seems to be quiet most of the time.

[3Turner]

I'm on XP service pack 3 and still receive updates. The last windows updates I have are 1/14/2012...5 security updates for XP and one update for MCE 2005.

[davelant]

I have had good luck reviving old windows computers by scraping the disk drive clean and installing Ubuntu. Linux can have its own frustrations, and it may or may not be for you. Offhand, I can not think of anything a papermodeler needs that is not available in Linux, except Pepakura, and that can be made to work (somewhat) under the Windows emulator called "Wine."

[John Wagenseil]

I have played around a bit with Puppy Linux, and used it for making a backup copy of my hard drive and manually cleaning out a virus infection Windows based AV programs could detect but not remove.
There are a few Windows programs that I occasionally use with no Linux equivalent, and I have heard that configuring wine can be a bear.
Does the current crop of Linux play well with scanners and give full printer support?
Basically my complaint/concern is just how much stuff gets deposited on the computer, without my knowing what it is for, and how it accumulates and causes a system slow down, and not knowing if any of it causes a security risk. With a new computer with more RAM and recent Windows I might not see a slow down, but all the files I mentioned would still be put on the hard drive.

[ct ertz]

If you have space download c-cleaner and use it every time you get off the web. It cleans off all that crap. It's a free program. Cleans "cookies" too and can fix problems in the registry.