Why does the computer get slower over time?
When I purchased my computer everything seemed realy fast, but over time it seems to be slowing down. Why is this?
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Answers ( 1 )
How much time? What kind of computer, and what operating system? Do you have any protection against hackers?
Most computer hardware is designed to have a lifetime of about a decade, since that is the schedule for its becoming so obsolete that it's an embarrassment to the owner (unless you are a collector of operational antiques). If yours is older than a decade, you can now get much more power and storage for the same price.
Operating systems also evolve rapidly. Micro$oft comes out with a whole new system every few years and gets right to work making old applications useless and their data formats incompatible. Apple releases a new MAC-OS/X system almost annually, and each version includes significant incompatibilities with older applications. The latest MAC-OS/X will not run on old hardware. Even Linux now pushes new versions every year or two, with similar "deprecations" of the libraries you wrote your code for. They all "recommend" regular updates on both the OS and the various applications, and the new versions are rarely smaller than the older ones, so your disk starts to fill up, degrading performance. Also the "repositories" from which you download your upgrades are prime targets for hackers, because if they can get everyone to download apps with "back doors" they "pwn" everyone.
The latest versions of OS and applications are designed to make full use of the latest hardware, which always has more memory, disk space and horsepower; so when you run it on older hardware you are apt to find it "squeezed" and underpowered, spelling poorer performance than the old software.
It's estimated that a large fraction of all "personal" computers (especially Windows systems) have been compromised and are now being used as "bots" by hackers; so if your computer seems awfully busy even when you're not doing anything with it, that may be because it's working for someone else now. Lots of companies sell "antivirus" software designed to prevent this, but I have found that the cure uses up more resources than the viruses; at least it doesn't hold your data ransom by encrypting it all with a key you don't have until you pay up.
This is all purposeful, if not explicitly intentional. All the sellers of computer hardware and software want you to be a captive to their brand and buy the new versions as fast as they churn them out.
Good luck!