Online downloads can be extremely useful for many users. There are several categories of shareware and freeware that can serve as useful utilities, time management programs, and other types. Besides safety and other concerns there is a big one that can mean bad things for your computer – and thus your – productivity. Some programs can take quite a bit of your memory, which certainly isn’t good.
In your task manager (on Windows) you can see which programs are running, along with how much of your system’s physical memory is being used. Some downloads, or commonly the total memory of several smaller downloads, can take up a lot of space. As a frame of reference, your anti-virus software shouldn’t come very close to 10 MB of RAM. Thus, if you just downloaded a handy but small utility that is running in the background – which is taking up 15 MB – you might want to move on.
Of course it is all relative. Processor-intensive programs can take up a lot of your physical memory, but you want to keep your system as unclogged as possible. This is why people who edit videos and images on a regular basis should be looking at computers with 4GB+ of memory.
If you find yourself with a memory-intensive program that takes up an unreasonable amount of memory, you might be well-served to look for something similar. Many utilities are a dime a dozen, with a number of freeware applications out there in a variety of categories. However, if it’s worth it, feel free to splurge – just don’t be surprised to wait a second as you open more windows in your Internet browser.
With some time you’ll realize what’s normal in terms of memory and programs. You’ll get much better at recognizing your system and how much it can handle.