How to improve your Internet Connection FREE of charge.Aug 01 '03 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line By investing a little time and energy, you can greatly enhance the quality and speed of your Internet usage. At the same time, you will gain peace of mind!
How to improve your Internet Connection FREE of charge By Glenn P. Ordell Some months ago I began reviewing the literature regarding current trends in security. I learned some very disturbing facts. There are numerous programs that can be obtained over the Internet that are harmful to your computer. These are not viruses or worms. Instead, they are known as "Spyware." Spyware is not easy to define, because there are so many variations of it. In the most typical case, Spyware usually arrives on your computer because you agreed to permit it. Perhaps you signed up for a free tool bar, or downloaded free software, or you are using some web-based server such as a file-sharing site. Some Spyware merely records information about what web sites you have visited, and transmits that information back to Spy. This slows down your computer because it takes time to send back this information. Some Spyware will actually hijack your computer. Many of the sophisticated Spammers (people who send junk mail) will hijack your computer and send off a few hundred junk emails without you ever knowing about it. Last week one of my clients could not even get Internet Explorer to come up on her screen. She would click on the IE icon, and wait twenty minutes. The hard drive made noises, but nothing ever came up. I began installing a suite of anti-spyware programs. One of these programs found that she had 77 different spies on her computer. One of them was the culprit that was guilty of the hijacking. Was she unknowingly sending out Spam all over the place? I don't know, but suspect that may have been what was happening. Another factor that slows down surfing, and is downright annoying anyway, is pop-up advertising. Pop-ups cost you bandwidth, which results in a loss of speed. Part of that suite of programs I mentioned earlier includes a pop-up killer. Finally, there are problems that occur because others are attempting to gain information and/or control of your computer. They may do this by "pinging" your computer. A "Ping" is a request made by another computer for the identification number of your computer. Again, this information can be used to hijack your machine. Installing software known as a “Firewall” can prevent this. Another class of programs that we don't need are virus/worms. If you install the program I suggest for Anti-Virus, be sure to uninstall any other virus program you have running on your computer. It is not unusual for virus programs to disagree on which one is in control of your computer. All of the programs that I am going to suggest can be downloaded at no charge, with no strings attached, from the Internet. Each of the authors requests donations if you like their program. If the links I am listing have changed since I posted this article, you can find these programs by using a search engine (Google.com is my preferred choice.) Simply type in the name of each program as it is listed below. Here is my list: Anti-Spyware: Spyware Blaster at: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html Spyware Guard at: http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html Spybot Search and Destroy at: http://spybot.eon.net.au/ Firewall: Zone Alarm at: http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/zap_za_grid.jsp Popup Killer: EndPops.com at: http://endpopups.com Anti-Virus: AVG Anti-Virus by Grisoft at: http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php One additional program that I recommend will correctly set the clock and calendar on your computer. It is known as Atomic Clock Sync at: http://www.worldtimeserver.com/ Finally, I strongly suggest that you update these programs and their databases on a regular basis. If you don't, you won't be fully protected. My rule of thumb is twice a week. If you are running any version of windows, you would also be well advised to download and install all available patches, fixes and updates from the Microsoft Windows Update web site at: http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp I hope you find this information useful. I know that if you load this software, the performance of your Internet usage will be greatly enhanced, perhaps by a factor of three times faster.  |
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