So we are continuing our newsletter on how to care for your computer. I hope that you find the second part as useful as the first part. I'll be covering various topics focusing on protection against computer viruses, as well as how to protect your files in case your computer dies. I've also included links to some of the products that will hopefully make your browsing safer.
Protecting against Viruses
Viruses are nasty computer programs written to do a number of things. Some can be harmless but most are dangerous to a computer and to you. They can damage files, send out spam, completely take over your computer, steal passwords, and even harvest your credit card/banking information. So it is always important to be on guard but even being the most cautious you can still end up with an infected computer.
Keep up to date - The people who write these viruses like to use holes in the software to attack your computer. One of the most important things you can do that will help you prevent getting infected is to make sure that the software on your computer is up to date. If you have a Windows PC then this means making sure that you have Windows updates turned on and are installing them on a regular basis. Other things to make sure that are up to date are Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Java, and any other popular software.
Get Firefox and download Adblock - One of the biggest programs that is often targeted is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser. It usually has quite a lot of holes in it and if you haven’t updated it in a while it can be used as a means to attack your computer. Which is why I would recommend an alternative browser it is called Firefox. Firefox also has the ability to install Add-ons which allow you to increase protection to your computer. One of the easiest Add-ons you can get is one called Adblock Plus. Most websites get revenue from the Ads placed on its pages but the latest trend for infecting a computer is to put viruses in the Ads. Simply browsing to a website that includes advertisements can get you infected now.
Get an Antivirus - One of the newest offenders in this is a virus called Antivirus Live 2009, or Internet Security 2010. It will pop up a window to scare you telling you that you have a virus, but in reality it is the virus. It will download more viruses in the background and can be extremely difficult to remove. Unless you are extremely aware and know what you’re doing you’re probably going to get infected if this pops up. For this reason I recommend getting a strong Anti-Virus tool. The one that I would recommend is Avast Professional Edition. (Link to Avast Pro) it is a great anti-virus. Updates are sent out daily so it stays on top of the latest threats. It will also monitor the websites so if anything like an advertisement with a virus in it comes up it will warn you.
Safeguarding your files
Many of us have important documents on our computer it is our address book, photo album, and gateway to our finances. Even if you go through all the steps I’ve outlined in this newsletter and my previous one your hard drive WILL DIE. Just like anything mechanical they wear out and you could lose all this important information. With the right kind of care they can last a long time, but eventually they will break down. This is why it is important to ensure your important documents and files are backed up.
External Hard Drive - You can get an external hard drive to back up your important files. These you can get one of these from just about anywhere. They’re good for having extra storage and space and provide a place to copy your files from your computer as a backup. They are also portable and light weight so you can transfer files from one family computer to another. However, just because they are stored in two different places, your computer and a external hard drive, does not mean that you will not loose your files. What if you had a fire, all of those important files would be gone. The computer would burn up, along with the external backup drive.
Get Carbonite - Carbonite is an Online Backup method to back up your files to a computer out on the internet. You have to have a high speed connection like, DSL or Cable to use this service but it is easy to use and install. You can still have your external backup and use this service. What it does to protect your files is to compresses, encodes the files, and transmits them over the internet to an external server. I’ve had a lot of hard drive failures over my life time of using computers and I wish I had had this sooner. Even if I had a fire, I lost my entire computer and my external hard drive. I could still retrieve my documents once I had a new computer up and running. This is why I use and recommend a service called Carbonite to backup my important files and documents.