You don’t have to spend a penny to keep your PC safe from viruses,
spyware and web bugs. Fight back with these tips and tools—for free.
Kill Viruses
Big-name
antivirus software such as Norton AntiVirus or McAfee VirusScan forces
you to pay for a subscription every year, but they have another drawback
as well. They also tend to suck up a lot of system resources and use
plenty of RAM, and your PC can take a big performance hit from them just
to keep itself protected.
There’s a better way. Use
avast!,
nifty antivirus software that’s free for personal use and that takes up
so few system resources and RAM you won’t even notice it’s there. It
includes seven different shields, and it’s a good idea to install and
use them all. Once avast! is running, you can customize each shield.
Double-click the avast! icon running in the System Tray and from the
screen that appears, select the shield you want to customize. To change
the sensitivity of the scanner—how aggressively the shield should
act—move the slider. Move it to the left to make it less sensitive, and
to the right to make it more sensitive. To customize the shield even
further, click the Customize button. The dialog box that appears will
vary according to the shield you’re customizing.
Note,
by the way, that before you install avast!, you’ll need to first
uninstall whatever antivirus software you’re already using; otherwise it
might not work properly.
Protect Yourself Against Spyware
For
most people, spyware has replaced viruses or worms as the most-feared
and obnoxious danger on the Internet. A relatively few number of people
become infected by viruses or worms, but it seems as if almost everyone
you know has been hit by some kind of spyware.
Spyware is a
catch-all phrase that encompasses many different types of obnoxious
programs. The least intrusive of the bunch report on your surfing
activity to a web site, which tracks what you do and then delivers ads
to your PC based on your interests. But increasingly, they are becoming
more intrusive. Some of them spawn pop-up swarms of ads that appear so
quickly they overwhelm your PC, slowing it down and making it unusable.
Others hijack your browser home page so that no matter what you do,
you’re sent to a home page of the hijacker’s choosing, which might be a
pornographic site, or perhaps a web site that spawns even more pop ups.
And some kinds of spyware, called keyloggers, literally spy on you by
watching every keystroke you make, and then send that information to
someone on the Internet.
Even more fearsome is spyware that turns
your PC into a “bot” or a “zombie” and forces it to spew out tens of
thousands or more pieces of spam, all without your knowledge.
But
you don’t have to be a victim; there’s a good deal you can do to
protect yourself, and you won’t have to spend a penny to do it:
Get a free spyware detector and eradicator
One of the best and most popular free program is
Ad-Aware.
It checks your system for spyware, finding not only program files, but
also Registry entries and cookies. After it does a check, you can choose
which spyware problems you want the program to fix, and it’ll go about
its work, deleting files, folders, and cookies, and fixing Registry
entries. Because no one spyware-killer is perfect, I suggest getting
another free one,
Spybot Search & Destroy.
If you’re a Vista user, you already have a free piece of antispyware,
Windows Defender, shown on the picture below, on your system. If you use
an earlier version of Windows, get a free copy of
Windows Defender.
Be vigilant about what you download
There
are plenty of free programs available on the Internet, but not all have
good intentions in mind. Some are spyware. So be careful before
downloading any free software. Go to reputable download sites, such as
the download library run by PC World or to CNET Download.com and read
the descriptions and reviews, to make sure the software doesn’t carry a
spyware load. In addition, head to the Index of Known Spyware page run
by
Gibson Research, the
SpywareGuide, and the
Spyware Warrior List of spyware for a list of spyware programs.
Use a personal firewall such as ZoneAlarm
A
personal firewall will let you block any program on your system from
contacting the Internet without your approval. With one installed,
spyware can’t “phone home” and alert others to your surfing habits.
Windows XP’s Windows Firewall doesn’t have this capability, so you can’t
use it to block spyware. Windows Vista’s Windows Firewall is better
than XP’s at blocking these kinds of outbound connections, but it may
not block all of them. For maximum safety, get a free firewall such as
ZoneAlarm.
Kill pop ups
Pop-up
ads are a common way of delivering spyware. Click a pop up, and you
might get infected with spyware. So, kill pop ups. Internet Explorer
includes pop-up killers, as does Firefox. But keep in mind that
sometimes pop-ups make it through their pop-up killers. If one does,
close it down and don’t click anything inside it (especially fake close
buttons; be sure to use the real Windows controls in the upper corners
of the window).
Be wary of files and links sent in instant messages
Increasingly,
spyware is propagated via instant messaging programs. Spyware can in
essence take over someone’s instant messaging program and then send
itself to everyone on the buddy list, either as an executable file or a
link—and it appears that a person, rather than spyware is sending the
file or link. So before clicking a link or using a file sent via instant
messaging, double-check with your friend that he is actually sending
you something, and that spyware hasn’t done the job.
Stop drive-by downloads
A
web site might attempt to download software to your PC without your
knowledge, and it might carry a spyware payload. Internet Explorer
includes tools to stop drive-by downloads, as does Firefox. However,
they’re not necessarily 100 percent effective. So don’t click links sent
to you in spam, which can lead to sites with drive-by downloads.
Watch Out for Web Bugs
Web
bugs are invisible bits of data, frequently a single pixel in size
(sometimes called clear GIFs), that can track all your activities on a
web site and report them back to a server. They are one of the more
pernicious ways your online activities can be tracked, no matter which
browser you’re using. Sometimes, the web site the bugs send information
to isn’t the one that contains the web bug; for example, a web bug might
send information back to an online advertising network.
Web bugs can send the following information back to a server:
- The IP address of your computer
- The URL of the page on which the web bug is located, so they know you visited the page
- The time the web bug was viewed, so they know exactly when you visited the page
- The URL of the web bug image
- The type of browser you have
- The values of certain cookies (generally only cookies set by the web site that the bug resides on)
A free piece of software called
Bugnosis
will alert you whenever it comes across web bugs on pages you visit. It
reports on the URL the bug reports to, and, for some bugs, it lets you
click a link it creates so that you can send an email of complaint to
the web site that runs the bug. It runs inside Internet Explorer as a
toolbar and doesn’t work with any other browsers.
The software
can’t actually protect you against web bugs, but it can alert you when
you visit pages that use them, so you’ll know to stay away from them in
the future. When you visit a site, the Bugnosis toolbar reports on the
number of suspicious items that might be web bugs. To see detailed
information about each suspicious item and web bug, click the down arrow
next to the Bugnosis logo, and choose Bugs Found in This Session.
You’ll see a list of every suspicious web bug. Click the item, and
you’ll see a more detailed description, and an analysis on whether the
item is truly a web bug or only suspicious.
Bugnosis can’t
actually block web bugs; it can only alert you to their presence. If you
want your privacy protected when you surf the Web, your best bet is to
surf anonymously.
Phishing is a method of stealing login info (usernames and passwords) by
directing the victim to a clone (fake) login page, that logs the login
info without the knowledge of the victim. Such clone website is known as
a phisher. eBay, PayPal and other online banks are common targets.
Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool
users. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing
incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and
technical measures.
Because
Hackers often target people who don’t know the value of the information
they are giving away, the help may be seen as carrying little cost to
the helper. Most of Humans tend to explain their behavior and of others,
while doing this we give away alot of information about us.
Well this ain’t a joke. Norton is giving away its Norton360 Version 4.0
and norton antivirus 2011 for 90 days free trial i.e 3 months. This is
a special promotional offer. This is an OEM setup installer that has
been released by norton in conjunction with microsoft.
