Keep Your PC Secure
July 9th 2006 08:48
Last night one of my friends got infected with a Trojan. Upon taking a look at his PC I saw how poorly he has setup his security and defense against the ever growing viruses/malware/spyware available on the internet. Therefore I decided to write this to teach some of you to protect your PC against most of the common attacks on your home PC
Update Windows
One very important update is Service Pack 2 which can be downloaded isplaylang=en" target="_blank">here if you don’t have it. Alternatively you can go to the Windows Update site to download it.
Also, ALWAYS update Windows XP. There are a couple of ways to do this. Firstly, there’s automatic updates for those of you who don’t regularly visit the Windows Update site. To enable this, right-click on your “My Computer” icon and select “Properties” Then select the “Automatic Updates” tab and choose how do you want the updates to actually update your PC. If you are not sure, just choose “Automatic”. You can also go straight to the Windows Update site to update your software. This can be done by either clicking on the link (either here or you can bookmark it) or you can open Internet Explorer, select “Tools - Windows Update”. You can even navigate to the site via “Start – All Programs – Windows Update”.
Get an Antivirus Program
This is one of the MOST important things you will need on your PC. If you have a brand new PC, install your antivirus first before going online. There is a lot of antiviruses to choose from, which can be confusing. At the bare minimum AVG offers a free antivirus system (for personal use) that can be found here. It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles but it does the job. Another free antivirus program that picks up Trojans a little better than AVG would be Avast . The more premium brands would be Norton and Panda Antivirus, which are both very full featured. Note that Google Pack offers a special edition of Norton Antivirus free for 6 months (kudos to Google once again). If how have a relatively slow PC with very little RAM, I would suggest NOD32, which is a really good antivirus that uses very little resources.
Get a Firewall
If you are running windows XP with Service pack 2, you already have an entry level firewall. To enable the firewall just go to the “Control Panel” and click on “Security Center” to enable or disable the firewall. You can also get third party firewalls, but you would have to disable the Windows Firewall if you do. One of the best free firewall is ZoneAlarm. It is relatively simple to use and does not require a lot of resources.
Antispyware software
Last but not least, it is advisable to get antispyware software. Some that are popular are Windows Defender, Spybot Search and Destroy and Lavasoft Adaware.
There are also software out there that packages all 3 of them (antivirus, firewall and antispyware). The 2 that I have tried out and recommend would be Norton Internet Security and Panda Platinum 2006 Internet Security. These suites do take up quite a lot of resources so be sure to have a reasonable processor and at least 512MB of RAM (I suggest 1024MB).
Last but not least, be careful with what you download from internet messengers, email and the web. Do NOT install anything that you are not sure of and Google it if you really need to install it.
Update Windows
One very important update is Service Pack 2 which can be downloaded isplaylang=en" target="_blank">here if you don’t have it. Alternatively you can go to the Windows Update site to download it.
Also, ALWAYS update Windows XP. There are a couple of ways to do this. Firstly, there’s automatic updates for those of you who don’t regularly visit the Windows Update site. To enable this, right-click on your “My Computer” icon and select “Properties” Then select the “Automatic Updates” tab and choose how do you want the updates to actually update your PC. If you are not sure, just choose “Automatic”. You can also go straight to the Windows Update site to update your software. This can be done by either clicking on the link (either here or you can bookmark it) or you can open Internet Explorer, select “Tools - Windows Update”. You can even navigate to the site via “Start – All Programs – Windows Update”.
Get an Antivirus Program
This is one of the MOST important things you will need on your PC. If you have a brand new PC, install your antivirus first before going online. There is a lot of antiviruses to choose from, which can be confusing. At the bare minimum AVG offers a free antivirus system (for personal use) that can be found here. It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles but it does the job. Another free antivirus program that picks up Trojans a little better than AVG would be Avast . The more premium brands would be Norton and Panda Antivirus, which are both very full featured. Note that Google Pack offers a special edition of Norton Antivirus free for 6 months (kudos to Google once again). If how have a relatively slow PC with very little RAM, I would suggest NOD32, which is a really good antivirus that uses very little resources.
Get a Firewall
If you are running windows XP with Service pack 2, you already have an entry level firewall. To enable the firewall just go to the “Control Panel” and click on “Security Center” to enable or disable the firewall. You can also get third party firewalls, but you would have to disable the Windows Firewall if you do. One of the best free firewall is ZoneAlarm. It is relatively simple to use and does not require a lot of resources.
Antispyware software
Last but not least, it is advisable to get antispyware software. Some that are popular are Windows Defender, Spybot Search and Destroy and Lavasoft Adaware.
There are also software out there that packages all 3 of them (antivirus, firewall and antispyware). The 2 that I have tried out and recommend would be Norton Internet Security and Panda Platinum 2006 Internet Security. These suites do take up quite a lot of resources so be sure to have a reasonable processor and at least 512MB of RAM (I suggest 1024MB).
Last but not least, be careful with what you download from internet messengers, email and the web. Do NOT install anything that you are not sure of and Google it if you really need to install it.
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