| by
Larry Magid
January 24, 2004
FROM
SAFEKIDS.COM
Are you feeling a little insecure?
You ought to be if you use a Windows PC.
Sadly, there is an unending supply
of creeps out there who are trying to steal everything
from your privacy to your sanity.
Spammers are among the worst. Despite
a recent federal law that makes it illegal to
send fraudulent unsolicited e-mail, including
messages with fake return addresses, I still get
about 200 such messages a day.
Spyware is another big intruder.
Have you noticed that your PC is running slower
than it used to? Has your browser’s home
page been changed without your doing anything?
Are you seeing the same advertisements coming
up over and over again? If so, you’re a
victim of Spyware and you’re not alone.
I don’t know anyone who uses the Internet
a lot that hasn’t be affected by this unscrupulous
practice.
Pop-up advertising is another common
annoyance. There are two general categories of
pop-ups -- those that show up in your browser
while you surf the web and Windows Messenger ads
that pop up on your computer seemingly all by
themselves. There are also pop-under ads -- similar
to pop-ups -- that you see as you close your browser
windows.
You already know about viruses,
worms and Trojan horses -- those little programs
that sneak into your computer to do all sorts
of damage. Despite widespread publicity about
them, they continue to wreak havoc worldwide.
And there are those hackers --
criminals, petty and otherwise who are out to
hijack your PC, steal your information or maybe
even steal your identity.
Solutions
Fortunately there are solutions
to all of these problems. While there is no way
to completely secure your computer, there are
things you can do to greatly minimize the impact
of these modern day parasites. There is a lot
that can be written about dealing with these pests,
but I’m going to give you the short course
Spam:
Let’s start with spam. First,
be careful about giving out your e-mail address.
Don’t post it on Web sites or chat rooms
and don’t give it to online merchants that
you have any reason to distrust. If you must be
public with an e-mail address, use a “disposable”
one such as a free Hotmail or Yahoo account. Second,
consider using an anti-spam filter. Programs such
as Matador from MailFrontier, SpamNet from Cloudmark,
and SpamCatcher from Aladdin Systems do a pretty
good job at separating your good mail from your
bad mail. You have to watch them – they
can occasionally trap good mail, but once properly
configured they all work pretty well, though some
spam will filter through. If you want to block
100 percent of your spam, use a challenge response
system such as Mailblocks that requires senders
to answer a simple question to prove that they’re
people rather than machines. It works great but
it does slightly inconvenience people the first
time they write to you. The newest version of
Microsoft Outlook (2003) has a built-in spam filter
that’s reasonably good.
Spyware
It’s hard to avoid spyware.
I get it even though I’m pretty careful
about where I surf, but it’s easy to get
rid of it. There are two excellent free programs.
Spybot Search and Destroy is very aggressive and
pretty easy to use. The free version of Ad-aware
is easy to use, effective but not as aggressive
as Spybot. You can download both from Download.com.
Although Spybot is free, the author requests a
voluntary donation to support his work. Whichever
program you get, you have to use it regularly
to keep your system clean.
Pop-ups
One way to get rid of browser pop-ups
in Internet Explorer is to download the free Google
toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com”). Another
solution that also helps prevent spyware is Stopzilla,
which is free to try but costs $19.95 a year to
keep up-to-date.
Stopzilla also suppresses those
other type of pop-ups, that come up even when
you’re not browsing net. There is also a
manual configuration that you can use to suppress
those annoying messenger ads. You can find instructions
at www.pcanswer.com/securitytools.htm.
Viruses
The best way to prevent and eradicate
viruses is to get an anti-virus program and keep
it up to date. All of the reputable products will
do that job as long as you frequently update them
to get the latest anti-virus signature. I use
both Norton Anti-virus and TrendMicro, but I’ve
also had good luck with products from Panda Software.
Regardless of what anti-virus program you use,
don’t open attached files -- even from friends
or colleagues -- unless you’re expecting
them. Some viruses mail themselves to people in
your e-mail address book, so it’s possible
to get them from friends. If someone sends you
an attachment, be sure it’s legitimate before
you open it.
Hackers
If your PC is connected to the
Internet, it’s vulnerable to attack. The
best way to protect yourself is via a firewall
-- software or hardware that blocks outside attacks.
ZoneAlarm from ZoneLabs is a free personal firewall
program that does the job quite well. Norton Internet
Security, which costs $69, protects you from hackers
and viruses.
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