Firefox is a better browser than Internet Explorer by a long shot, but at times it's made me wonder if it's strayed from its original mission of being a lean, quick, simple browser based on the Mozilla engine.

I've seen several "Optimizing Firefox" guides and most of them talk very little about performance, and the ones I did find were not only disappointing, they also appear to be widely copied verbatim without attribution. So here's what I do to shaq-fu Firefox into shape.

I said I was done writing about system optimization. I changed my mind. I have one more thing, and it seems appropriate, now that Vista upgrades are available.

Be very wary about upgrading your version of Windows.

I've talked system optimization a lot over the past week. I think I'm done for now, so I'll talk about why you would want to do these things, and how I got interested in it.

I've seen many spyware-infested Windows 95/98 boxes that just won't defrag no matter what you do. Defrag starts, gets part of the way through, then the disk changes and it starts over again. Leave the system alone for dozens of hours and it might finish, but probably not.

Let's get back to talking about utility replacements. We last talked about antivirus programs, but what about the other component of what's commonly now called a "security suite," the firewall?

The answer is, don't use firewall software if at all possible--which means every man, woman and child who has a cable or DSL connection. Use a separate device.

Antivirus software is the worst culprit in PC slowdowns. I am not alone in this belief. I don't suggest going without (not completely) but it's certainly possible to save lots of money, eliminate subscriptions, eliminate most of the overhead, and still practice (relatively) safe computing while running Windows.

Use Clamwin, the Windows version of ClamAV, and don't engage in risky behavior (more on that later).

Want Diskeeper's features without ponying up 50 bucks?

Sorry, I can't help you. The combination of JKDefrag, Scandefrag, and Pagedefrag is better and it's free.

I've been messing around with a registry cleaner called CCleaner. I like it a lot better than the commercial tools that used to come with Norton Utilities and the like, and I like it better than the freebies that we used to use like Microsoft's Regclean.

And you'll never beat the price.

I had a small number of servers getting an error code of 8 (0x8) with event ID 1202 when I tried to manually force a group policy change with the command secedit /refreshpolicy machine_policy /enforce.

From searching the Web, it appears I'm not the first to have the error, but it appears I may be the first to have solved it.

So you've got WinZIP installed and have to upgrade it because some security audit mandates a specific version. Like a good wage slave, you try to comply, and you get the error message that wkqkpick.exe is in use.

Since you're smarter than the computer, you fire up Task Manager to go show wkqkpick.exe who's boss, only the operating system tells you Access Denied. Now what?