5 BASIC STEPS TO PROTECT YOUR COMPUTER

Recently I had a chance of reading an article that said that Windows 7 was susceptible to almost 80% of viruses out there. This made me think about ways in which we can protect the operating system and eventually lead to writing this article.

According to me the best weapon we have against the attacks of these unwanted programs is common sense. As long as we use it the right way along with the right software we can stay safe. So here are a few steps that you should take to stop infections.

Step 1 – Use a good antivirus program. There are lots of free and paid antivirus programs in the market. Choose a program that has good reputation and uses less system resources. The popular free AVs are AVG, avast, clamwin etc and the popular paid ones are Norton, nod32, kaspersky etc. Microsoft has also recently released an antivirus program called Microsoft Security Essentials or MSE. It is a freeware and has worked quiet well in tests by 3rd party organizations. You can give it a try. .

Step 2 – Stop downloading crapware. Avoid downloading programs from untrustworthy sites. Programs such as cracks and keygens are one of the main reasons of infections. Another source of infection are pirated softwares. Softwares that you download from torrents and similar sites may be injected with additional codes and trojans that can harm your system and steal your personal information.

Step 3 – Browse responsibly. Sometimes you might not even have to download and install something but just open a website in your browser for a rogue program to infect your computer. So be careful when you are browsing. If you are using IE8, there is a feature called smart screen filter that prevents you from opening such sites.

Step 4 – Backup your data. Nothing is perfect and incase something goes wrong and your system gets infected there is a great chance of you losing your data. So make sure that you have all of your important data backed up, preferably in an external drive.

Step 5 – Update your OS and AV regularly. Millions of rogue softwares and security holes in the operating system are being discovered. To help protect them the OS and antivirus manufacturer release updates for their products frequently. Make sure that you install those important updates. An out of date antivirus program is of no use and hence it is better to use an updated free antivirus rather than an out-of-date paid AV. The licenses of paid AVs have to be renewed periodically. So make sure that the license of the antivirus that you are using has not expired.