M G Harish

Friday, August 10, 2007

Secure your Computer - The Best Things in Life are Free

Lately I have been hearing a lot of complaints from my friends about virus attacks. We all know that precaution is better than cure. It is easy to protect our PC from malwares than scratch our head to get rid of them after they get in. So here are some tips which won't cost you anything, but make your PC as safe as it can be:
  1. Web Browser: Most of the malwares and adwares find their way into the PC from the Internet and if your browser application is not good enough to block the harmful contents, what good is that for? Almost all the browsers have pitfalls, but Mozilla Firefox is the most secure web browser till date.
    Download Firefox here

  2. Antivirus: A good antivirus will always keep your PC clean. But it should not eat up most of the PC resources scanning each and every wanted/unwanted files. Avast Home Edition is a simple and easy to use antivirus, that has automatic updates. Its requires a key that is obtained by registering in the site for free.
    Download Avast here

  3. Antispyware: There are many antispywares which brag about their features. Honestly, most of them are useless. SpyBot S&D is a good one, which provides immunity from known threats and registry tweaks. It also has update feature, which enables you to be insusceptible to the most recent vulnerabilities.
    Download SpyBot S&D here

  4. System Optimization Tool: Registry Cleaners, Duplicate / Unnecessary / Temporary File Managers, Internet History / Cookie Managers all fall under this category. But CCleaner and EasyCleaner are two such tools, which provide almost everything you want.
    Download CCleaner here
    Download EasyCleaner here
You can protect your PC from 99% of the attacks if you have the above mentioned softwares. There are some other tools such as Firewalls and Internet Security Suites which, I think, are unnecessary for personal use. Trust me, I've not got any virus in the last two years, apart from w32.USBWorm which can be removed manually using the steps given here. All these tools are freewares, which means you can download them from their site free of charge. The best things in life are free.

If you have anything to discuss about these or have a better solutions/tips, you are welcome to share them.

Like the post? You may want to...
Digg this

8 comments:

Sriram Gullapalli said...

Good Information Harish. Thanx for this...

Harisha - ಹರೀಶ said...

@Sriram:
You are welcome :)

Anonymous said...

i have mcAfee free version anti-virus...so if i download Avast home edition....will it slow down my comp? does it take too much space? is it ok if i have both the softwares...
thanks

Harisha - ಹರೀಶ said...

@Varsha:

In general, using two antivirus softwares is not recommended. So use either of them, not both, preferably Avast.

Beschi said...

hey ur solution was excellent it helped me.Another thing where did u learn all these stuffs.Can u teach me.

Nayak said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nayak said...

harish can you suggest anything to remove powerpoint.exe virus.. which makes the taskbar and registry disabled..? i'm also using the avasta only..

Harisha - ಹರೀಶ said...

Hi Manjunath, if you make the hidden files visible, then those powerpoint.exe viruses will be detected and deleted automatically by Avast