If you are working on a windows computer and you want to check in on your antivirus let’s go ahead and start with control, alt, delete. Press these together and wait for your menu and search task manager or alternatively you can just go directly to your task manager through control, shift, escape. If you are working on a Mac do this by pressing command and space bar together and type in activity monitor.
You will see a chart and there will be applications listed on the left hand side of the screen and then a column for memory nearby. If you click on that small down pointing triangle next to memory on a Mac it will sort your memory items from greatest to smallest or the opposite. On a windows, when you open this it has a list of items on the left hand side, you will want to click on processes and then memory. Name, status, CPU and memory will be listed across the top. You’ll want to click on memory for sorting processes by memory.
The amount of memory used should be minimal unless it is an editing software or high consumption video game or app. However if you notice in the top 10 or especially in the top 3 an antivirus software that you don’t remember downloading it is almost certainly malware. It is an application pretending to be useful when it is actually just slowing down your computer and taking resources.
You’ll want to right click on the process and hit end task. This will shut down the program for the time being. You then will need to go to control panel and uninstall programs. Find that particular application and uninstall it from your computer. Once you restart and you no longer see it taking your memory you have been successful at this and your computer should be running noticeably faster.