I don’t know why a bad hard drive isn’t listed. usually when I get continusally slow reponse from a computer it’s the hard drive dying. I’ve tried backup the drive up and formatting it then restoring the image to see if that helps. if it doesn’t I always advise folks to replace the drive, this usually works 100% of the time.
I use Grisoft AVG Free and i’ve been using it for years because it’s pretty lite and doesn’t seem to take away anything from the perfomance of the PC. I also like it because I have not had any problems with it blocking any folder shares I have at home. I will admit that they try really hard to get you to upgrade to the Pro version so you have to watch out for the little prompt messages that pop-up here and there but it has been a really solid anti-virus package for me. I highly recommend it.
You should check with your internet provider and see what Anti-Virus suite they offer and consider using it if you’re not doing anything fancy at home. for example in my area of Oklahoma the main Internet providers are AT&T and Cox cable. Both companies offer a 3-license certificate for McAfee Internet Suite.
I don’t own a iMac but i would highly recommend one if you can afford it especially now that you can access Office Online or Google Docs.
“”A computer virus is a type of malicious software program (“malware“) that, when executed, replicates by reproducing itself (copying its own source code) or infecting other computer programs by modifying them.[1]Infecting computer programs can include as well, data files, or the “boot” sector of the hard drive. When this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be “infected” with a computer virus.[2][3][4] The term “virus” is also commonly, but erroneously, used to refer to other types of malware. “Malware” encompasses computer viruses along with many other forms of malicious software, such as computer “worms”, ransomware, trojan horses, keyloggers, rootkits, spyware, adware, malicious Browser Helper Object (BHOs) and other malicious software. The majority of active malware threats are actually trojan horse programs or computer worms rather than computer viruses. The term computer virus, coined by Fred Cohen in 1985, is a misnomer.[5]Viruses often perform some type of harmful activity on infected host computers, such as acquisition of hard disk space or central processing unit (CPU) time, accessing private information (e.g., credit card numbers), corrupting data, displaying political or humorous messages on the user’s screen, spamming their e-mail contacts, logging their keystrokes, or even rendering the computer useless. However, not all viruses carry a destructive “payload” or attempt to hide themselves—the defining characteristic of viruses is that they are self-replicating computer programs which install themselves without user consent.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus
I use AVG Free on my home PC’s, you should check with your internet provider to see what security software they offer. in Oklahoma Cox Cable offers a free 3-PC license for it’s customers, I don’t use it because I don’t like the firewall program that’s built into the McAfee Anti-Virus suite. But you have to look out for AVG’s tricky packaging because you’ll end up installing the trial version instead of the free version.
Apparently this is a common problem, i have windows 10 installed on several PC’s and I’ve never had this problem, but after reading several comments it seems to be pretty common.