AVG Free is the program I use for my day to day antivirus protection. A comment by Steve from GRC however indicated that Avast Free discovered 50% more infections than AVG . Either way, I’d definitely install one or the other to help fight the bad guys.
PayPal’s security protocol has been the subject of a lot of criticism from the “Security Now” podcast.One solution is to change your Identification Preference to a pin number instead of your social security number or the last 4 digits of your credit card number. Here’s how to do it.
1. Login to PayPal.
2. From Account Profile – click on Identification preference at the bottom left of the screen.
3. Click on “Create” – Customer Service Pin.
4. Type in your new secrete pin number – now you’re set.
Here’s a highly recommended program for backing up your data.
Cobian Backup. It’s FREE !
I do a data backup once a week and about once a month I help people who don’t backup their data and are trying to recover a file. Don’t be one of those.
I also recommend that after backing up to an external hard drive, that you disconnect it from your computer and unplug it from any electrical sources. While it’s tempting to just keep it plugged in at all times, if you have an electrical surge, it might fry both your computer’s hard drive and your backup.
If you ever share thumb drives with a friend or co-worker, there’s a good chance they might infect your computer via their thumb drive. If your friend’s computer has a virus that can be transmitted via thumb drive, when they pass the drive to you, it may automatically run and infect your computer. The trick is to turn off AutoPlay for all drives on your computer. Here’s how:
On most versions of Windows (for example, Windows XP Professional, Vista Ultimate):
1. Click Start, Run, enter gpedit.msc
2. XP users: Open Computer Configuration – Administrative Templates – System,
Vista users: Open Computer Configuration – Windows Components – AutoPlay Policies;
3. Find Turn Off AutoPlay in the right-hand pane and double-click it.
4. Choose Enabled and set it for All drives.
Or, in any Windows version:
1. Launch the Registry editor Start – Run – regedit)
2. Find HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
3. Double-click NoDriveTypeAutoRun in the right-hand pane and set its value to hexadecimal FF. (To turn it back on, change the value to 91)
M
acrium has made available a FREE version of their disk imaging software. While I haven’t tried it, it does seem to have some pretty good reviews. Here’s the link.(click here) Backing up your hard drive is imperative these days and now cost is not an issue.
