Excerpts from PC magazine May-June issue 2005 . Authored by: William Emmanuel Sy, CISSP
STEP 1: Install and Enable Antivirus Software: Installing Antivirus software allows users to protect themselves from most viruses, trojans, but not from worm (until now). The important point is that anti-virus software data must be updated as often as possible weekly at the minimum (better daily).
For Cost and License Free AV softwares:
AVG , Avast, & Clamwin AV
For Commercial softwares:
I would recommend Eset's NOD 32.
Step 2: Install and Enable Personall Firewall Software.: For those using Window XP SP2 it has its default firewall, but for the rest, you may have to settle for third party firewall tools. The most common free-for-personal-use firewall tool in the market today is Zonealarm . It comes with your basic personal firewall plus a number of useful protection features.
Step 3: Replace Some Applications with Less Dangerous Versions: A number of software products are commonly used as vectors malwares and the damage they cause. The Two most common are MS Internet Explorer and MS Outlook Express. To mitigate these problems, one could replace the software.
For internet browsers:
Mozilla Firefox - It's currently the world's fastest growing web browser and its free.
For email program:
Mozilla thunderbird - It has features such as junk mail detection, a fully customized look and improved privacy and security and its free.
Step 4: Don't Install Softwares That You Don't Really Need: For many casual, small offices and home users, there is this notion that "more is better", that is to say-the feeling that if you have more "stuff" on your computer, you are getting better value out of it. Not! The point is, if you don't really need that particular program for your work( or play), then it's just sitting there taking-up hard disk real estate. A lot of old programs scattered around your hard disk may slow it down. Worse, some of those programs may have security vulnerabilities. So clean-out and delete/uninstall any programs that you don't really need. "Sparse" is better.
Labels: Antivirus, Article, Firewalls, Open Source, Software, Tips |
Actually its not really hard to migrate from MS to Mozilla because these are very user friendly softwares.