Lately my computer has become really slow, especially when I open Chrome. Strange ads pop up even when I'm not doing anything, and sometimes I hear the fan running at full speed. I've already tried Windows Defender but it doesn't find anything.
Ok so the symptoms you're describing are definitely suspicious 🚨 Windows Defender is fine but sometimes it misses stuff, I'd recommend trying Malwarebytes (there's a free version) or HitmanPro because they're more aggressive at catching nasty things. In the meantime also check your Chrome extensions because malware often hides there and you just need to uninstall them, and take a look at the processes running in task manager - if you see weird stuff with strange names (especially if they're eating up a lot of CPU) it's probably a virus. If all that doesn't fix it, it could also just be that your PC has too much stuff installed or the disk is full, but I'd try Malwarebytes first because that's the first step we sysadmins take when something doesn't add up 💻
Agreed with what was said, Malwarebytes is a solid choice - I've used it myself when something weird happened to my pc after downloading stuff around. One thing I notice is that the fan going full blast could also mean something is running in the background and eating up resources, so I'd also try checking Task Manager (press Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and see which processes are using the most CPU and RAM - if you see weird stuff like strange names or processes you don't recognize, that's a red flag. If Malwarebytes doesn't find anything, you could also run a scan with Kaspersky Rescue Disk which is more aggressive, but that takes a bit longer and you have to do it from a USB stick. In my case, before I figured out it was actual malware, I noticed Chrome was slow because it had installed some nasty extension, so check there too - go into extensions and see if there's stuff you didn't put there yourself.
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