We live in a world where there are many threats as soon as you log on to surf the net, check your email or do some simple research. That's why it's more important now than ever to protect yourself with knowledge. So here are 7 tips that will greatly aid you in protecting your identity and your computer.
1. Use A Proxy Hider. These are perfectly legal and it's your every right to use one, because anonymity is becoming a thing of the past now days. Simple Google "proxy hider" and you will find a series that are very good. Voila! You can now surf the internet and remain anonymous.
2. Keep everything up to date. Your browser is usually overlooked, but keeping the plugins up to date will keep your surfing experience a little bit safer.
3. Use an anti-spyware/malware scanner. I like Malewarebytes and SpyBot, which are a good start, but there are many others. The thing is, you need to keep them updated and run them at least once a week.
4. Firefox and javascript don't mix well. If you are going to be visiting a website that has lots of flash, pop ups or ad space, go to options >> content >> uncheck Enable JavaScript (for the time being). This is one of the most devastating ways that people get nasty computer viruses.
5. Use a smart firewall. By smart, I mean one that learns from behavior. I like Kaspersky, because it will ask you whether or not you trust a process, and tell you the percentage of other users who either trust, or distrust it. When you see a big 99% of users trust this, it makes it an easy choice, and Kaspserky' and some other programs are good at learning this way.
6. Read before clicking. If you get an email that contains a virus, you won't know it until it's too late. However, you will have some clues. Do you know the person? is the subject line gibberish? is the context of the subject line hypey sounding?
The same is true for when you are clicking on website links. Roll over the website link and look at the source destination in the bottom left corner of your browser. Does it look legitimate or does it contain lots of strange characters? And just because an ad tells you that your computer is infected, does not mean that it is.
7. Don't use Internet Explorer. It was a great browser as one point and still serves some purposes, but it has way too many loop holes that can be exploited, at least until they do something about it. Go with either Chrome or Firefox.
Computer running slow? bad internet speed? you may need to remove spyware!
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