Should You Leave Your Computer On At Night Or Turn It Off?

November 12th 2007

Off Switch

Should you leave your computer on all the time or turn it off when you are not using it?

Several years ago I would have told my clients to turn off their machines before leaving the office at the end of the day in order to save power. But with the proliferation of viruses and threats over the last few years you need to make sure that anti-virus programs and anti-spyware get regular updating.

Windows also needs to be updated whenever a new security patch is released. This is usually not daily, but it may happen several times a month. It's important to update your operating system as soon as a patch becomes available because hackers move very quickly to reverse engineer Windows updates. As soon as an update is released, they create a virus specific to that vulnerability and start looking for unprotected machines to infect and invade.

In addition to the above, you should be backing up your data every day, and the best time to do this is at night when you are not using it.

So the bottom line, leave your computer on and schedule your automatic updates for after you have finished work. Then use a free utility such as Switch off to shutdown your PC after the updates are complete. Switch off can be downloaded from www.download.com - search for “switch off”).

TESTIMONIALS

"To our horror our system recently failed but thankfuly we found IT Soho. They came out the next day and fixed our problem. They are very professional. They also offered us a solution to prevent us from future computer failure and system problems. Any one who relies on the computer in their every day life should use IT Soho. They deliver what they promise and act very quickly."

— Maggy Wells, Director, Mayfair Tanning

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