Generally on a week to week basis ....
what should I be doing to my computer to ensure its all working fine?
backups? defrag? malware scans...
what is a general simple list to go by?
Sarah,
Malwarebytes is pre-configured to download a daily update and to scan your machine. But you might want to change the time it's been programmed to run just in case you might have gone to bed by then.
Go to the Settings menu at the top and then click the link to "Automated Scheduling" in the left hand menu. Double click "Automatic Updates" and then make changes in there. Do the same with "Threat Scan".
Backups are without question a necessary part of life to ensure that if things go pear-shaped and your hard drive fails for example, you have an alternative source where all your personal data resides. If you haven';t got one already, buy an external USB
3.0 hard drive. They're quite cheap these days and you should be able to pick one up for about $70. Just plug it into a USB 3.0 port (USB 3.0 ports are blue while USB 2.0 ports are white).
You can use the "File History" menu for that which you'll find in Windows Control Panel (small icons view).
Defrags can be configured to run automatically which is what I do. Hit Windows key to open the Start menu and then just start typing "defragmenter" and you'll see the link appear on the right before you've finished typing the whole word. You can right click
it and pin to the Start menu or Taskbar if you want, but if you're going to schedule it to run weekly (my choice), there's no need to really.
I use Firefox as my default browser because of all the free add-ons I have access to and because I configure it the way I like it. It's a personal choice of course, but you can take a look at it here if you're curious:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox
This link takes you to all the Firefox add-ons: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
And you can change its appearance here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/themes/?sort=popular
Hope this helps.