5 Critical Steps to Protecting
Your Computer on the Internet
No doubt you are all aware that being connected to the Internet can be dangerous to your Computer's health with malicious software commonly known as MalWare which covers spyware, trojans and viruses. The chances are when you purchased your computer the salesman never explained about Malware and how vital It is to make sure you get your computer set up properly if you want to avoid problems down the road.
With all the viruses, spyware and other threats on the internet today, no computer is safe and should be set up without the proper protection. I have afriend who connected his laptop for 5 minutes to the internet to download a driver and BANG he caught a virus
The above example therefore shows you how vital it is to make sure that protection is in place as soon as you set up your new machine without any excuses.
The following five steps will make your computer a much harder target for threats. You still won't be completely immune to problems, but 99% of the time the threat will pass you by, looking for the easy mark.
1. Running a Personal Firewall
A personal firewall is software that basically makes your computer invisible to hackers, worms and other threats that can infect your computer over the internet.
Setting up a firewall is the absolute first thing you should do if you're going to connect to the internet. Without a firewall, your computer could get infected in as little as one minute after connecting.
If you have a brand new computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2, there is a firewall built into Windows. It will already have been turned on when you first set up your computer. However, experience has shown me that this is not the best firewall to use although certainly is much better than doing nothing.
If you're running an older version of Windows, even an earlier version of Windows XP, there is no firewall automatically set up for you. In this case there are two possibilities:
If you don't have any personal firewall software installed, you should do so right away. Zone Alarm is a very good firewall program that has a version that you can download and install for free.
You can download the free version of Zone Alarm from ZoneAlarm
2. Turn on Windows Updates
Again, if you're running Windows XP Service Pack 2 this is already set up, but otherwise you should turn on Windows Updates. Microsoft releases updates for security problems and other bugs in Windows on a regular basis. These will only work with Genuine copies of Windows XP
These updates will keep your computer running better, and they often fix security issues that could compromise your information or privacy.
If you are running Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can double-check that automatic updates are turned on by clicking Start, then click Control Panel, then double-click Security Center. The window that opens will tell you if automatic updates are turned on, and lets you turn them on if they're not.
To turn on automatic updates in earlier versions of Windows XP, click on the Start menu, click Control Panel and then double-click on System. On the "Automatic Updates" tab, click the option to "Automatically download the updates and install them on the schedule I specify."
To turn them on in Windows 2000, click on Start, click Control Panel and then double-click on Automatic Updates. Again, click the option to "automatically download the updates and install them on the schedule I specify."
Now when Microsoft releases updates, they will be downloaded for you automatically and Windows will tell you when they are ready to be installed.
3. Install & Update Antivirus Software
Most new computers come with antivirus software these days. You might have Norton, McAfee, PC-Cillin or another brand. No matter what program you have, you will need to update it when you get connected to the internet.
It doesn't matter how new your computer is - there will be new viruses, and new updates for the antivirus software, since it was loaded.
The exact process is different for each brand of antivirus program, but most of them will have an icon in the bottom right corner of your desktop, beside the time. The icon might be a picture of a shield (McAfee), a stethoscope (Norton) or something else.
In most cases, if you point to the icon for your antivirus and click the right mouse button, a menu will pop up with an update option. It could be simply called update or could be something like Live Update or Download Latest Updates. If you click on the update option (with the left button this time) it will install the newest updates for you.
If you're not sure which icon is for your antivirus software, just point to each one for a few seconds and a little title should pop up telling you what it is.
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