Breaking and Entering On the Internet! I like to make analogies between the online world and our physical world. The similarities are becoming more recognized every day. Here's my favorite... "If you are not taking the security of your home or business computer seriously, it is like leaving the front door of your home open all day and all night whether you are home or not." The Internet is a big place with every imaginable character out there, many of whom are happy to intrude on your private domain and use it to their benefit. In addition to that, there is a constant battle for your desktop from many of the seemingly trusted software companies including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and others, large and small. When you start up your computer, they want you to see their stuff and they are constantly fighting over what you see. This creates software conflicts that, over time, can bog down the performance of your computer and slow your productivity. Be an active participant in the management of your computer workspace by taking the time to install these essential protections and following the best practices shown below. After years of working online, we have put together a set of programs and practices that have allowed us to use the Internet in relative safety and with minimal intrusion from evil doers. By the way, these are our favorite picks. Our objective is to save you the time of analyzing several various solutions on your own. 1. Basic Computer Security To Protect You From Viruses. McAfee Virus Scan - We like this solution the best. It simply has worked best for us with the least intrusion on our workspace and time. Virus protection, by its very nature is somewhat intrusive. It must update itself every so often to keep up with spammers and virus writers. This one does it in a way that has not gotten in the way of our own work. We consider McAfee an absolute must. Cost = About $60.00 per year (subscription). www.mcafee.com 2. Basic Spam Protection CloudMark Spam Filter - CloudMark stands out to us as the best method of keeping up with spammers. You can't stop them, but you can control what you are willing to view. This very successful method uses the collective, real-time knowledge of millions of email subscribers to manage an ever changing database of spammers so it can filter them out before they get a chance to invade your mailbox. The program creates a spam folder in your Outlook or Outlook Express so you can look through the junk in case a good email message gets caught, but then once you've browsed it, you can dump them all in one fell swoop. Very easy. In addition, if you receive a spam that was not caught by the filter, you can report to the database with one click which will block it forever more from your good email box and alert the millions of others in the community of this spammer. We consider this a must as well. Get CloudMark here. www.cloudmark.com - Cost - $39.95 per year per user. 3. Basic Spyware and Adware Protection Ad and Spyware are programs that are (often without your knowledge, unless you like reading lots of fine print) automatically installed on your computer. These programs change the way your computer sees advertisements on the web and often are the reason that you get uncontrollable popups. There are two programs that we've used successfully to protect our computers from Adware and Spyware. The good news is that they are free. They also offer paid upgrades, but we've gotten by pretty well using both of these free versions. Spybot Search & Destroy - This is a free program that we've used and it seems to have worked well for us. Get it here. http://spybot.safer-networking.de/en/ Ad-Aware Personal - Catches some of the adware and spyware programs that others don't. Get it here. http://www.lavasoft.com/software/adaware/ 4. Update Your Windows Software It's our opinion that MS Windows has become easier to use and more secure over the years. If you're not running Windows XP or above you are missing out on much easier computing. It's not that expensive to upgrade and the benefits are real. More important however is that you must update your version and install the latest patches when they come out from time to time. The good news is that the latest MS Windows software does much of this automatically for you. Remember, there are virus writers out there every day trying to invade your computer. Fortunately, there are just as many good guys fighting them and keeping up with them. By keeping your software updated, you are reducing your chance of being exploited. The crooks have plenty of easy pickings to take advantage of. You don't have to be one of those easy pickings. Just update regularly. Get it here... http://www.microsoft.com Important Personal & Procedural Policies to Follow 5. Never, Never, Never Believe or Accept Unsolicited Email Offers If you buy something from an email that was sent to you out of the blue, you are a.) encouraging spam, b.) putting yourself at risk for viruses or bad software, and c.) putting yourself at risk of getting ripped off. Just say no to all Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE). In many states, it is illegal. If you don't have a problem with spam now, the surest way to get started having problems is to begin buying from those that send it. You only have to get on one list for your email address to sold and traded all over spam circles and I assure you that it will become a problem for you once you get started. You may publish this article free of charge in your ezine, web site, ebook or print publication so long as the copyright notice and the resource paragraph (at the end of the article) are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated. Copyright (c) 2005 Joe Salvatore |
