Tips to keeping your computer safe on a ZERO budget
Jul 05 '04
The Bottom Line You don't have to spend money to help keep your computer virus, spyware, adware, and malware-free...
Tips to keeping your computer safe on a ZERO budget
With viruses, malware, adware. spyware, and goodness knows what else constantly attacking your computer, how can you safeguard your machine? There is of course no completely foolproof way, but I will show you how you can make your computer much more secure - without spending any money. You don’t even need to be particularly computer literate to follow the tips listed below. (NB – if you’re a computer expert, you’re unlikely to find this particularly helpful!)
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Tip 1: One key thing you should do is go into your Internet Options and change your third party cookie settings to “prompt” or “off”. This will stop cookies from being saved on your computer without your knowledge. (Turn it on to prompt and see how many sites – that you’ve not even accessed directly – try to save a cookie onto your computer. I bet you’ll be surprised!) If you have trouble with a particular website not working you may need to temporarily enable third-party cookies, but be sure that it’s a reputable site first. Control Panel – Internet Options – Privacy – Advanced – then set third party cookies to “Block” or “Prompt”.
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Tip 2: Download “ScriptTrap”. This little gem (only a 46K download) prevent scripts from being initiated on your computer. Many virus, when launched, run a script – sometimes with devastating effect. Sometimes clicking on a link in a dodgy email (these emails often appear to be legitimate, however) can launch a script too. Obviously, stopping things like this happening is a very good thing!! Each time ScriptTrap intercepts a script, it gives you the option of allowing it, blocking it, or scanning it with your virus killer. You can set it up so that certain programs will always be allowed to perform scripts, i.e. you virus checker (especially if you have it set up for scheduled scans.)
Get it from: http://keir.net/scriptrap.html
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Tip 3: Download AdAware. This will scan for any spyware (cookies that track your internet use and send the information to a third party - without your knowledge) or similar nuisance that has made its way onto your system, and give you the option of deleting it. The free version is complete in itself, though you can buy a version that also scans your memory all the time.
Visit www.lavasoft.com
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Tip 4: Download AVG Virus Killer – Free Version. The free version is complete and regular updates are provided. As well as complete / partial system scans, it also provides resident shielding. It’s an extremely professional package and a very effective virus killer. If you don’t already a virus killer that you’re happy with, you need to get AVG.
Visit www.gristoft.com
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Tip 5: If you don’t already have a pop-up blocker (those annoying little adverts, some of which now carry viruses that steal your bank account information), the best one (I have it on reliable authority [AOL has its own pop-up blocker] – well, Carl told me… okay I lied, I said it was on reliable authority…) is the Google Toolbar. Download it at: http://toolbar.google.com/
Repeat tip 3 and 4 on a regular basis, followed by Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter (in that order). The more frequently you do this the safer you’ll be and the better your system will run. I wouldn’t advise going more than a month without running them (I find that running a defrag even when the analysis says it’s not necessary is still a good idea.)
Well, it’s not rocket science – but I hope someone finds this info useful!
CaptainD
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