Secure Your Broadband Connection

The internet is just as good or as bad as the real world. No one is 100% secure on the web and no one is 100% unprotected on the web. Just by plugging your computer you start having attacks, just by registering an email address you start receiving spam and just by registering with a forum your username will be indexed by Google and spam will start to come.

1. Install an anti virus. Windows by default does not bring anything to protect you against viruses. Avast is currently the best free solution I know of. I have on on my computer for several months and the software is working fine. I have daily updates, I have daily scans… so far no infection.

2. Install a better firewall on the computer. Microsoft’s firewall is not good enough for serious work. Their firewall can be easily hacked because hackers love to hack big companies and they devote more time and attention to Mircrosoft’s solutions than to anything else. I would use Comodo or Zone Alarm. Both are free, both are great.

3. Move all your important files to an external hard disk or to the cloud. In case your computer is infected even with all this security, you need to be prepared for the worse. Your hard disk can fail, your operating system can fail.

4. Use your computer using a limited account. Avoid using the Admin account because it has full access to everything. A limited account cannot install software, read malicious software, and a limited account cannot give your machine’s access to a remote person.

5. And finally remember to use common sense on the internet. There are machine attacks and human attacks. It all depends on the day. For machine attacks you have software, for human attacks you have common sense. Use both.