Just spent the two days after Thansgiving trying to recover my daughters computer from all kinds of wierd malware....finally gave up and reformatted every thing , bought a new copy of XP with SP2 and reinstalled XP and most of the applications she wanted and it seems to be going well...
How do you protect yourself from the bad stuff on the internet?
A good anti-virus program, a firewall, an anti-spyware program that catches things in real-time, all the latest patches, and choosing a non-Active-X enabled browser such as Firefox, Mozilla, or Opera.
How do you protect yourself from the bad stuff on the internet?
Software:
Do not use Internet Explorer or Outlook/Outlook Express.
The
Mozilla and Firefox browsers are free (open source). I haven't tested Firefox yet, but last I knew, the Mozilla installer included browser, Usenet & E-mail clients. You may choose to install any or all.
Opera has a shareware version of it's browser which displays ads; registering the browser removes the ads.
Lavasoft offers "Ad-Aware SE", a free (for home users) anti-spyware/adware program. "Spybot Search and Destroy" is another free anti-adware/spyware utility.
Antidote Superlite is a free, on-demand virus scanner. I (and others here at Free Republic) have used this scanner, and found that it can detect some virii/trojans missed by Norton AV.
Zonealarm is free for individual and not-for-profit charitable entity use (excluding governmental entities and educational institutions). If you have broadband, you need a good firewall.
Common sense:
NEVER open any unsolicited attachement sent to you in an e-mail. I.E. If you didn't ASK someone to send you a specific file, don't open it. Ever.
Read the EULA. When you install software, ALWAYS read the End User License Agreement. Some unscrupulous software manufacturers/vendors word their EULAs in such a way that, by clicking the "Agree" (or similar) button, the user grants "permission" for spyware/adware/malware to be installed on their system.