Protect your computer

Protect your computer/confidential information

Introduction

These days, there are so many bad or nasty things your computer can catch or stumble into from the Internet without even trying.  Virus, malware, trojan, spyware, and malicious web sites are some of the things to avoid. Each is intended to damage files, steal your identity, capture your account information, show you ads, or turn your computer into a platform for launching more infections (worms, virus, adware/spyware).

With so many potential vectors of attack, what is one to do? How is a typical computer user going to fight this onslaught? Well, if you are reading this, chances are you are looking to improve your computer’s security because of some prior bad experience. Guess what, you’ve found the most complete discussion on computer protection ever.

First Line of Defense

In order to protect your computer, you need to acquire a multi-layer set of solutions like the one listed below.  All these are free!

Last Line of Defense

If your first line of defense fails, your last line of defense can help you by protecting your personal or confidential information.

Encryption

If you own a laptop, then you shouldn’t leave home without making sure you are using TrueCrypt–an encryption solution that can help make sure your confidential and personal information are totally secure should you lose your laptop, or god forbid, should it be stolen.  This free open-source software solution allows you to create virtual encrypted disk drives which only you can read.

ID Protection

If you are worried about identity theft and have a few dollars to spare, look into subscribing to a credit or identity protection service like protectmyid.com.  This service sends you alerts whenever there is a change in your credit status–like someone applying for credit under your name!

I’ve been using the BlueCoat K9 Web Protection product for some time now.  It’s purpose is to help keep you or your kids from going to inappropriate web sites.  The degree of inapropiateness you disallow is dictated by how you configure the filter and what site categories you allow.

Note that if you have kids, this is a perfect companion for your home computer.  The product is free; all you have to do is register to get your free license key.  Download the  product here:

As you may know your standard anti-virus (AV) software cannot generally protect you from malicious websites.  Although the big names in the AV market have implemented such features in the past, those solutions have gotten so bloated that they pretty much make your computer run like a snail.  That is why I’ve pretty much have given up on most of those solutions and have used a more lightweight solution from AVAST!.  AVG provides a lightweight solution as well, and they’ve recently made public their link scanner–called AVG Linkscanner.

This linkscanner is supposed to protect you from malicious web sites by blocking or informing you of a site’s reputation before you even go there.

You can get an online demo of  AVG Linkscanner here:

I’ve installed it at home.  It’s free; let’s see how it does.