10 Tips to Make Your Home PC More Secure

Here's a list of 10 things I came up with that will help make your PC a little more safe out in the wild. I use every single one of these and can not tell you the last time I have been infected. If all people with computers and laptops followed these simple rules, we'd see a lot less spam and viruses floating around on the internet.

1. DO NOT visit sites that may be malicious. Installing Mcafee Site Advisor can help with that.
2. Never click on links in any emails that look suspicious, even if it looks like it’s from someone you know. Email addresses and links are easily spoofed.
3. DO NOT download from Peer2Peer networks. If the RIAA doesn’t scare you, then maybe identity theft will? Doing so puts you at a HUGE risk of downloading trojans and viruses. Most infected computers I’ve seen have Limewire or similar file sharing programs installed.
4. Install an Anti-Virus program. My favorite by far and the one I recommend for all my users is Avast.
5. Install multiple Anti-Spyware programs. I usually go with Windows Defender, Spybot and Adaware…yes all 3. I like Spybot’s “immunization” feature.
6. Update on a regular basis. This means, your anti-virus and anti-spyware definitions and most importantly your Windows security updates.
7. Use Firefox. Internet Explorer has vulnerabilities that hackers love to exploit. Although Firefox is not 100% safe, it is not the focus of many hackers like IE is. If you have to use IE, upgrade it to version 7.
8. Install a hardware firewall/router. Connecting your directly to a dsl or cable modem leaves you open to port scanners and worms. For extra security, turn on your Windows Firewall or use something like ZoneAlarm.
9. Enable security on your wireless network. You never know what your neighbors could be doing.
10. Ever see those weird popups that say you were infected and you need to download something to clean it? Don’t click OK! Often times, they look like legitimate Windows messages, but usually, it’s a popup attempting to navigate you away or even worse, install spyware onto your computer.

**BONUS TIP** Protect your computer with a strong Windows password. I shouldn’t need to explain why.