D1 – Explain how software utilities can improve the performance of computer systems. Software utility | How can it improve computer performance? | Improvements that can be made to the utility | Anti-virus | When viruses enter a computer the performance will significantly decrease because the viruses take over all the system files and change their information. Antiviruses help improve the performance because they stop the viruses from coming in the computer before they make the computer slow as antiviruses scan in real time and whenever a file is downloaded it is always scanned. | Anti-viruses should be constantly searching for new viruses being made and should have constant updates where it will always remove the viruses and stop them from entering your computer. Instead of having scheduled updates they should be constant so new viruses can be detected. There should also be constant virus scans which do not slow the PC down. | Firewalls | Firewalls help improve computer performance because it stops connections from outside of the local area network coming in through ports and controlling the PC or taking files with important credentials stored on it. It is basically a barrier to keep unauthorised elements out of a network or a computer. They are filters for your traffic incoming to your computer so it can block incoming packets that are unsafe. | Firewalls can only protect what they can. It is impossible to stop every single virus that a software might have coming into the computer. There are some situations where the firewall cannot provide protection because not all viruses go through the firewall. If there is a possibility to make all viruses/communications to go through the firewall then all harmful software would be able to be blocked. | Removal of cookies | This helps improve computer performance because when cookies are stored on the computer they take