P3- Explain the purpose of different software utilities

Virus protection

Virus protection software is designed to prevent viruses, worms and Trojan horses from getting onto a computer as well as remove any malicious software code that has already infected the computer. Most virus protection utilities now bundle anti-spyware and anti malware capabilities to go along with anti-virus protection. Internet security suites go a step further by including additional capabilities like anti-spam, anti-phishing, firewall, file protection and PC optimization.

FirewallA firewall is a utility designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software, or a combination of both. Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized internet users from accessing private networks connected to the internet, especially intranets. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria.

Disk cleanupDisk cleanup is a utility introduced by Microsoft for Windows 98, the utility allows users to remove files that are no longer or that can be safely deleted. As can be seen in the picture, Disk Cleanup can delete Temporary Internet Files (associated with Internet Explorer), old downloaded program files, empty the recycle bin and delete Temporary Files. Newer versions of Disk Cleanup (e.g. Windows XP and later) also allow users to delete Offline Webpages, Microsoft Error Reporting Temporary Files, Web Client/Publisher Temporary Files, Compress old files and Catalog files for the Content Indexer.

Defragmentation

The word "disk defrag" is typically used to refer to the Microsoft Windows utility called Disk Defragmenter. It is designed to solve a problem that occurs because of the way hard disks store data.