Excessive numbers of "startup programmes" lead to slower operating speeds, resulting in lower overall efficiency, said the report by Qihoo 360, a major Chinese computer security company and largest free anti-virus software provider in the country.
About two-fifths of the 10,000 programmes most commonly set to start running when users' computers boot up, including web browsing and word processing programmes, are considered "useless" by Qihoo 360, Xinhua reported.
The report said that the average computer in China takes 56 seconds to fully boot, with about 380,000 computers taking more than five minutes to complete the process.
"Some of these programmes can be useful, but it is unnecessary to automatically run these programmes at start-up," the report said, adding that "autorun" programmes, which automatically start running when the computer boots up, are often the targets of malicious computer hackers.
Malicious browser helper objects (BHOs), system junk files, trojan software and pop-ups are the biggest problems for computer security in China, the report said.
The number of Chinese users who have installed Qihoo 360's free security software topped 328 million by the end of January this year, according to iResearch, a computer data analysis company.
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