Trust your gut. If you get an email attachment or receive a file on your computer, or through email that looks suspicious or that you’re not expecting, don’t open it, no matter how tempting.

Keep Windows up-to-date. Every second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft releases patches and updates for Windows. You need to run Windows Update and install them as soon as possible to protect against internet threats.

Don’t visit websites that aren’t well-known or trusted. There are millions of websites that look perfectly legitimate, but contain code that takes advantage of exploits in Windows that may or may not be patched.

There are a lot of products that claim to protect your computer from the threats of the internet. The trouble is, there are a lot of options, and some products work much better then others.

Norton and McAfee are the most well known. The most notorious problem with both products is as much as they protect, they slow the system down, and impact performance.

Products like Norton SystemWorks try to be an all-in-one solution. The trouble is, since it’s trying to do too many things at once, it doesn’t do any one of them very well.

There are free choices that are very effective. Tens of millions use them because they cost nothing. Once people use a product, they’re more likely to pay for the paid versions down the road if they like it. AVG and BitDefender are some free choices that also have paid versions available.

The best security software on the market today is NOD32. It was designed to be highly effective while having a limited impact on system performance. and it’s easy to use. NOD32 isn’t free, $30 for the antivirus, and $60 for the Smart Security suite.

The other highly effective choice is Kaspersky. They also have a security suite that is highly regarded. While it does have a slightly larger system footprint in terms of performance then NOD32, it’s equally as effective. Kaspersky starts at $60.

Never run more then one anti-virus or firewall program on your computer. They don’t get along, and can sometimes detect each other as threats, and crash your computer.

You may have heard of “spyware”. As you surf the net, files are downloaded to your computer that monitor your computing habits and report them to a third party.

These days you don’t really need more then one anti-spyware program, in fact the one that comes with your security software is usually good enough.

Some spyware are almost as bad as a virus. They’re constantly communicating with the internet, and some contain scripts that change system settings. Ad-Aware was one of the first products to detect and eliminate such threats.

Modern anti-virus solutions now monitor and eliminate spyware and viruses, replacing the need for a separate solution. The most effective standalone product is Spyware Terminator, which is free.

Pay attention when the computer prompts you to accept or deny a program from doing something. If your security software isn’t sure, it will ask you, and if you ok something you shouldn’t, you might as well not be secured at all.

Originally posted 2008-10-31 04:16:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Browser toolbars are one example of a program being bundled with many free programs in recent years. The toolbars are a small rectangular bar that appears directly under the Address Bar in Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. Google has one, so does Yahoo, but many non-legit brands also have them available. Although they may be useful, some of these toolbars are tracking your internet surfing and computer habits.

Companies are looking for any way they can to save money, in paid or free software. A lot of software is now including the options to install other programs along with it, browser toolbars, and other little “extras”.

It takes only an extra few seconds to read each screen as a program installs on your computer. Each step may be asking you to install something you may not want, and many include checkboxes to give you the option. If you don’t uncheck those checkboxes, that extra program you just agreed to may just slow your system down.

I’ve heard it referred to as “next, next, next syndrome”, because many software installations include a “next” button at each step. Many have become so complacent, they don’t want to pay attention to what’s being asked, they just want to install the software so they can use it, and that’s just lazy.

Those few extra seconds of time spent reading and understanding what is being installed on your computer can honestly mean the difference of spyware, or in some cases, a virus, making its way on to your system, depending on how legitimate the program you are installing is.

Taking the time to understand exactly what you’re installing will also prevent extra programs from installing that can damage or crash your computer, or as many have noticed, they can also slow your system down to a crawl at times.

Another disadvantage to many software installations is they will ask the user if they want the program to automatically start each time you turn your computer on, which for many programs, is completely unnecessary. If you want to use a program, the user can start it yourself as they need it.

If there is a program on that starts up when your computer is turned on that you don’t want to be automatically running, press the “Windows logo key+R” and in the text box, type “msconfig” (without the quotes), and go to the “startup” tab, and uncheck anything you don’t want running when you turn the computer on.

To uninstall many of the extras, such as toolbars that you no longer want, left-click the Start Menu, click on “Control Panel”, then double-click “Add/Remove Programs” (Programs and Features in Windows Vista), click the program, and choose “Uninstall”.

Originally posted 2009-01-26 18:20:23. Republished by Blog Post Promoter