Security & Cleanup Guide

Chrome

1. Open Chrome and press Cmd+Shift+Delete (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Windows)
2. Set time range to "All time"
3. Check "Cached images and files" and "Cookies and other site data"
4. Click "Clear data"

Safari

1. Open Safari → Preferences → Privacy
2. Click "Manage Website Data" → "Remove All"
3. For cache: Develop menu → Empty Caches (enable Develop menu in Preferences → Advanced)

Firefox

1. Press Cmd+Shift+Delete (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Windows)
2. Select "Everything" from the time range dropdown
3. Check "Cache" and "Cookies" then click "Clear Now"

Mac

1. Verify XProtect is active: open Terminal, run spctl --status — should say "assessments enabled"
2. Check Activity Monitor for unfamiliar processes using high CPU or network
3. Review Login Items: System Settings → General → Login Items — remove anything you don't recognize
4. Check /Library/LaunchAgents and ~/Library/LaunchAgents for suspicious .plist files
5. Run a scan with the free Malwarebytes for Mac or use ClamAV from Terminal

Windows

1. Open Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Quick scan
2. For deeper scan: "Scan options" → "Full scan" or "Microsoft Defender Offline scan"
3. Check Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) for unknown processes with high resource usage
4. Review startup apps: Task Manager → Startup tab — disable unfamiliar entries

Mac

1. System Settings → General → Login Items
2. Review each item — if you don't recognize it, select it and click the minus (−) button
3. Also check "Allow in the Background" list below — disable items you don't need running constantly
4. For deeper review, check LaunchAgents in Terminal: ls ~/Library/LaunchAgents/

Windows

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager
2. Click the "Startup" tab
3. Sort by "Startup impact" — disable High-impact items you don't need
4. Right-click suspicious items → "Open file location" to verify what they are

Mac

1. Apple menu → About This Mac → Storage → Manage
2. Click "Documents" → sort by "Large Files" to see the biggest space hogs
3. Check "Downloads" folder — most people forget old installers (.dmg, .pkg files)
4. For duplicates from Terminal: find ~/Downloads -type f -size +100M -mtime +365 (files over 100MB, not modified in a year)

Windows

1. Settings → System → Storage → click your drive to see category breakdown
2. Click "Temporary files" to safely remove temp data, old Windows Update files
3. Use "Storage Sense" to automatically clean up files on a schedule
4. Sort your Downloads folder by size (View → Sort by → Size) and delete old installers

Mac

1. System Settings → General → Software Update — install any pending macOS updates
2. Open the App Store → Updates tab — update all apps
3. For Homebrew users: brew update && brew upgrade
4. Check individual apps (Chrome, Firefox, Slack, Zoom) for their own update mechanisms

Windows

1. Settings → Windows Update → Check for updates
2. Click "Advanced options" → enable "Receive updates for other Microsoft products"
3. Open Microsoft Store → Library → "Get updates" for store apps
4. Manually check: browsers, Zoom, Adobe products, Java, and other third-party software

Mac

1. System Settings → Privacy & Security
2. Review each category: Camera, Microphone, Location Services, Full Disk Access, Screen Recording, Accessibility
3. Remove apps you no longer use or don't trust from each permission category
4. Pay special attention to "Full Disk Access" and "Accessibility" — these are the most powerful permissions

Windows

1. Settings → Privacy & security → App permissions
2. Review: Camera, Microphone, Location, Contacts, Calendar, Phone calls, Account info
3. Toggle off any app that shouldn't have access
4. Also check: Settings → Apps → Installed apps — uninstall anything you don't recognize

Phones can't be "full-scanned" like a computer — Apple and Google sandbox every app on purpose. What works instead is checking the handful of Settings screens where real compromise actually shows up. Our free guided check walks you through all of them in about 10 minutes and scores the result.