Protect your computer
I am going to keep this short and sweet for you. People often ask – how do I stop Spam, why am I getting Spam, and occasionally people ask about Anti-Virus.
My answer is to ensure that your computer(s) is well protected at all times and this is very boring. The exercise I am about describe I probably do every 6 months on average – but so far touch wood I have never had a genuine Virus problem (Spam is another issue, but this certainly helps).
So here’s what I do to protect my computer:
1) I use AVG Free – it’s brilliant, it’s free and it works well in the background. Briefly, Norton is very bloated and completely hogs memory slowing down a computer and McAfee comes with a lot of stuff I just don’t want or need. So AVG is my Anti-Virus software of choice.
You can download it at http://free.avg.com/it-en/download-avg-anti-virus-free – remember to select the Free Version it is all you need.
Next – install and leave all the settings default – you should schedule a daily scan or if you are like me set it to run at a time when you ‘might’ have your computer on – I set it for 8am in the morning, that way if my computer is on – it’ll do a scan while I am having breakfast, alternatively it won’t scan that day.
A computer definitely slows down while scanning so be prepared for that.
Never have two or more Anti Virus programs installed on the same computer – they intefer with each other and do not provide better security
2) Also worth booking marking is Ad Aware – this software does a different sort of check and scan of your computer looking for know malicious programs, cookies and other things. These are not necessarily Virus and won’t be picked up as such by your Anti Virus program, so Ad Aware fills this gap.
You can download it at http://www.lavasoft.com/single/trialpay.php – try to avoid the Trial Pay thing – I think you can download it without this.
Next install and make sure you ‘update’ the latest updates and then do a full scan. It takes 20 minutes or so. it is also very advisable to delete your web browsing history, clear your cookies and remove anything you think might be malicious first.
At the end of the scan you should be left with a small list of ‘Alerts’ – you can choose to delete or keep them depending on what you think. It’s easier than it sounds.
At the end of the scan I uninstall Ad Aware – I only use it every 6 months or so, so really I don’t want it clogging up my computer and the chances are there will be a newer version in the months to come.
3) Finally I use SpyBot Search and Destroy as the final tool in my armoury. This software looks quite flaky, but it definitely not – it digs deeper and searches out more persistent Malware and is very good at it. I have no real idea what all these programs are and do – but SpyBot finds and destroys bad stuff. It’s worth the 20 minutes it takes to scan things.
You can download it at http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html – don’t worry about donating, just download the latest version and make sure you update it.
Next install, update and run – it will scan specific places on you computer, find what it needs and on your instruction it will delete what it needs to. When finished again this program can be un-installed as you really do not need it clogging up your computer.
That really is about all I do to keep my computer safe… I usually run these three pieces of software if I think I have a virus, or something else is wrong… usually the worst of things are captured and deal with, if they are not then you have a real and different sort of problem.
I’d like your feedback – tell me what you do and tell me what you think as well and of course if you have anything to add that might make it easier for others I am happy to share it – just comment below.