How to keep your PC secure running on WindowsXP

Cleaning up your PC
1) Go to the following link and download ccleaner.
www.ccleaner.com/download
After downloading. Install the software.
CCleaner is a system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool.
CCleaner removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.
It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history.
It contains a fully featured registry cleaner that fixes issues with the registry. It contains NO Spyware or Adware!

2) Protect your system from viruses.

There are many free antivirus that are avialble in the market today. The best ones that are recommended.
a) AVG antivirus
b) AVAST
You can download AVG free from the following link
http://free.avg.com/
and AVAST home(basic) Edition from
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
The advantage of AVG over AVAST is that AVG will not ask you to register in 30 days.
Remember to keep updating your Antivirus database with regular updates

3) Now that you are protected from viruses, there are other threats as well.
Use Ad-Aware software to scan for any malicious spyware and remove them.
Spyware are the software programs that record crucial information from your system (Such as keystrokes and Screenshots) and send it to other systems.
You can download the software from
http://www.lavasoft.com/single/trialpay.php
NOTE: The free version does not offer a real time monitor and protection of spywares.
Remember to keep updating the Ad-Aware database.

4) Apart from the ones I have mentioned above use ZoneAlaram software to control the applications that are trying to access the Internet.
ZoneAlaram is a free firewall which can be downloaded from
http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/free-upgrade-security-suite-zone...
Using ZoneAlaram you can Approve or Deny programs that are trying to access your Internet.
This will
a) Help you save your Bandwidth.
b) Stop illegal programs (like spywares) to send information.
c) Moitor incoming and outgoing traffic.

Caution

Do take a backup of your registry when you use Ccleaner. In case of any problems you can restore your registry.