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Protect your
home computer from malicious virus attacks
Hi all,
With all these malicious viruses about, there
is huge discussion about the vulnerability
of home computers.
In all the discussions I notice that there are
very few suggestions put forward to
counter this terrible treat other then have an up todate anti-virus
program and a firewall.
Here is my advice, if
you want it, and most of the solutions are free.
If you download your mail to your computer
through e.g. "Outlook" or some similar
program, you now have your mail on your hard drive inside your computer.
Once you open that mail you will be infected if it contains a virus.
The simple answer is to be able to look at
your mail while it is still up on the net
with your Service Provider. There is a Free program
called "Mailwasher" that can be
downloaded from http://www.mailwasher.net/
.
This program when set up on your computer (it
sets itself up with just 1 or 2 choices
from you) can access your mailbox and you can see what mail is there
ready to be downloaded. You can then preview or delete anything that you
are not sure about.
You can also categorise your mail, designating
friend or blacklisting Spam or unknown.
The other good qualities are that you can "bounce" (send an automatic reply saying that you no longer exist
at this e-mail address) to Spammers. You
can also see an e-mails size, so when your friend sends you a 10MB
attachment you can just delete it before you download your mail.
So, you access your mail through Mailwasher,
this program allows you to see, sort and
delete mail you do not wish to download. You can now open Outlook from
within Mailwasher and download the safe mail in the normal way (Send/Receive
Important:
If you use internet cafe's abroad always make sure that you un-tick the boxes that ask you, if you want the computer to remember your e-mail address or Password. Some hotels have computers that are not controlled by ticket numbers and only require you to put money in a slot to gain access - It is very important that you log off from everything before you time-out because the next guy that puts money in the slot and looks for example, "Ebay" will find your logged in one, where he can start committing to spend on your behalf if you have not logged out. So if you time-out before you log out -- Put more money in and log out
------------------------------
It is essential to have an up-to-date
anti-virus program and also a security firewall
protection program on your home computer.
You can download a free anti-virus
program that can also be updated free from:
It's very good as long as you keep it up
todate. You can set the program to automatically
check for updates. Set it for to check daily if possible, as the
amount of updates has to keep up with the increase in viruses.
You can download a free
Firewall program from:
This program again will set itself up
with a few choices from you. If you are
not sure just pick the choice "Default settings".
----------------------------
Get protected
with a free program from:
Some disreputable Companies drop cookies on your system that will control where you search for products on the net. Others can steal information from your computer every time you go on line. If you find these useful you can make a donation to help them constantly improve.
http://www.zone-x.com/spybot.php
---------------------------
You can also download a free program to stop this spyware getting into your computer. Don't forget to update regularly.
http://www.spywareguide.com/blockfile.php
----------------------------
Get a free special search engine link on your Browser toolbar from Google. Eliminate Pop-up's. This is great for getting rid of the annoying pop-ups, you will hear a Bonk! as it swats each one and records the number of eliminations in the Goggle bar
------------------------------
Protect your children from harmful content with a fantastic Free web content monitor filter called Naomi internet filter
------------------------------
I am just an amateur computer enthusiast and
not an expert. I have used all the above
programs and found them very good, I'm sure there are expensive alternatives
to the above that may have a greater protection, but if you do not
have any protection at the moment I would recommend that you start getting
these Free ones as soon as possible. If you are
careless and allow a virus on to your
computer, you may unwittingly cause a lot of trouble to your
friends or company, some of my friends and colleagues have found this to
their cost in the recent past.
Joe Carr
It is essential to download *Critical Updates from Microsoft. These will patch any security hole found in the Windows system. For the older version of Windows XP the Service Pack 2 is available free on CD from Microsoft. See: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/sp2_whattoknow.mspx the Vista service pack is also available
P. S. Never open any E-mails attachment or link from Microsoft, as they do not sent any e-mails and viruses makers try to get you to open an e-mail by using what you would think is a safe sender.Always ask yourself when you get an e-mail about bank account details, Pay Pal, sharing a fortune or winning a lotto etc. How could they know my e-mail address? Set up an e-mail address that you use just for joining sites on the web and give it out on any form that you must give your e-mail address - never use this address for your important contacts.
A good independent site for good computer hints, links and downloads is: http://www.silverhairs.co.uk/sitemap.htm
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