How To Protect Your PC

Being an Internet user you should know how necessary is to protect your PC from different malware, viruses and worms. Be sure to prevent is better than to cure.

The traditional method to provide you computer with additional protection

Usually people try to use multiple signature scanners that include anti-viruses, anti-trojans, anti-spywares and anti-rootkits. Very often these tools cost too much and afford too little additional protection.

An up to date antivirus will find a lot of spyware while an anti-spyware program will also detect several Trojans, viruses and worms as well.

You should know that adding the “layer” of protection you will get not only a better protection but also several false positives. One of them is that you will suffer from long time load on your computer. It means that having good firewall together with an antivirus and antispyware tool will diminish returns.

Sometimes a specific malware that has penetrated your PC can disable all the layers of protection considering them useless.

Well, how to prevent infection?

• Keep your OS and MS Office completely updated. Check if your update settings are automatic.
• If you use Firefox, Adobe products, Flash plug-ins and other useful software you should update them as well.
• Choose the alternative software. Sometimes popular programs are worse than others because of high weight and its “popularity” among malware writers.
• Be cautious while surfing. Avoid visiting web pages that offer serial numbers, keygens, AVG LinkScanner, etc. These free offers very often have hidden plug-ins that attend site security ratings.
• While checking email never open the attachments from suspicious sources. Also don’t click on the links in email from unknown senders.
• Download software from the websites you can trust. Install the program just when you are confident it doesn’t include infection.
• Be sure that your firewall is turned on. You can use your Windows’ firewall or a firewall with outbound protection.
• Disable AutoRun function.

Basically even the above tips won’t guarantee 100% protection. Even a trusted source can be infected with malware. So you need more protection than a basic security service.

Provide with a better protection

Take care of your normal Windows environment. This is what you are using now, your default setup in Windows.

There are few ways to keep all malware away from your normal Windows account.

• For your daily work use limited user account
• High risk programs need to be run with limited rights
• While testing high risk programs you should have a sandbox
• Use policy restrictions while running high risk programs

Each point has its advantages and disadvantages. That’s why you need to find all necessary information about it and to analyze them individually.

Also you can try on-demand scanning. It can be represented by antivirus scanner, key logger scanner or a rootkit detector. An on-demand scan is a scan when you initiate it manually.

This type of scanning helps you to use only computer power. Try anti-spyware scanner like Super Antispyware or Panda Antirootkit. These are free and very effective. Run them weekly or monthly. It will give additional protection to your antivirus program.

Finally you should understand that day by day there appear new malware programs. Absolutely none of antimalware programs can provide you with 100% protection.

Choose your security method and remember that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.