6 of 18

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 3

is that if you have a lot of software that has this; it will eventually slow your computer speed down significantly. So you have to find a happy medium, if you will. On my system, the Windows OS and my anti-virus are in automatic update, all others I update manually (weekly). A word about automatic update, quite often, the update will check for updates every few minutes, so keep that in mind when considering automatic up dates. I repair infected computers, and the most common fault is that the software was not up-to-date. A good rule of thumb is that when you open a program, you search for updates before executing it to run.

Now that we are up-to-date on the OS, we need to have a good anti-virus. Most computers come with a trial version of some sort or another. Trial versions seem like a good deal, but you have to be aware that it will expire in some short period of time (usually 30 days). When that expires, you in essence are surfing with no protection. On any Windows OS, that is the kiss of death. I deal a lot with Windows XP and when I re-install it, I run a nice little free program called PC decrapifier. Despite its bad sounding name, it is a real gem. It gets rid of all the trial version of programs on the hard drive. Then I get a good version of anti-virus on the computer. If you're not going to get a name brand anti-virus, there are a couple free ones, the freebies I use most often are Avira, or AVG. Norton, in the past, had a bad habit of being a resource hog, and that slowed the computer noticeably. Rumor control has it that it is no longer true, so it's up to you. By all means I highly recommend having it automatically update, and run it at least weekly. That brings us to:

The world of adware and spyware, they are programs that can and will attack the computer without any assistance from you. With all these little programs that are getting on our computer by just visiting a website, it's getting to be like a drive by shooting. There are four programs to install and run on your computer. The first one is Ad aware, a program that has been around for awhile. The current version is the anniversary version. The second is Spybot S&D, another that has been around awhile. It used to be that these two were all you needed combat spyware issues. That is no longer true, so the next one in line that I think should be downloaded is SuperAntispyware free edition. The last one I would use is Malewarebytes program. There are a lot of other anti spyware/adware

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about The basics of home computer security?
We want to hear your view. Write now!