How to Protect Yourself from Viruses, Adware, Spyware and

By: Ryan Bauer

Spyware/adware is a new major concern for PC users everywhere.
Infecting your computer silently (usually installed with
programs that seem harmless), spyware and adware can collect
personal information about you, as well as cause pop up ads to
come up all of the time, changing your browsers home page,
sometimes even completely disabling your computer's usability.

This article will show you how to protect yourself against
harmful spyware / adware, as well as how to remove current
infections, and how to protect yourself from viruses, hackers
and other general "malware".

The first thing you can do, if you're an Internet Explorer user,
is consider making a switch to the Mozilla Firefox web browser.
Firefox can do everything that Internet Explorer can do, and
much, much more. Plus it is almost completely spyware "proof",
and is much more stable and secure than Internet Explorer. You
can go to getfirefox.com for more information.

Next, you'll want to keep your computer up-to-date. To do so,
you'll want to download all available updates from
windowsupdate.microsoft.com (if you use Firefox, you will need
to fire up IE to do this since Microsoft doesn't like people to
use other browsers, so they have "banned" Firefox from accessing
Windows updates).

Now that you've got a secure browser and have Windows up to
date, it's time to talk about the anti-spyware software. The
following is a list of the top three players in the free
anti-spyware software game:

Spybot Search & Destroy Download from: safer-networking.org If
you're only going to download one program, get this. Spybot is
known as the king of spyware removal - and is completely free,
ran buy a guy who volunteers his free time to keeping Spybot up
to date.

Lavasoft's Ad-Aware Download from: lavasoftusa.com Ad-Aware is
technically a for-profit program, but they have a freeware
version of their paid software, which is just as good, in my
opinion. It picks up a few things that Spybot misses, so it's
good to run both.

Microsoft's Newly Released Anti-Spyware Downlaod from:
microsoft.com Not a must-have if you have the above two
programs, but it actually is a pretty good program, especially
considering it's a Microsoft product. Might as well have it
around to pick up anything the other two might have missed.

Take all of the programs that you have chosen to use, download,
and install them. Then, one at a time, update each program, run
them, and remove anything that they found. This should
effectively remove any active spyware or adware on your system.

Now that you have spyware removed, you'll need hacker and virus
protection. To keep hackers out, you will need to install a
solid firewall. You can either use the old built in with Windows
XP, or download a third-party one.

To activate Windows XP's built in firewall, follow these easy
steps: Click the Start button, and open up the Control Panel.
Open "Network Connections" (or "Network and Internet
Connections", then "Network Connections" if you're using the
category view). If you're using broadband, or another form of
connection through a LAN, right click on Local Area Connection
(or the appropriate network connection), and select Properties.
Click on the advanced tab, and click on Settings. Select "On",
and don't select "Don't allow exceptions". Click OK on all
windows to close.

If you would like to download a third-party firewall, Kerio
Technologies has a great personal firewall that you can use. It
can be found at kerio.com/kpf_home.html.

Grisoft offers a great freeware antivirus program called AVG
Free. It is a great alternative to the common commercial
antivirus software designed to milk you for more cash with their
"update subscription" fees. Updates to AVG are 100% free,
forever. AVG can be downloaded from grisoft.com.

To keep your system completely secure, be sure to scan for
viruses, spyware and check for Windows updates every week or so.
By taking these simple steps, your computer is now many times
more secure and less likely to leak out personal information or
get a malware infection.

About the author:
Ryan Bauer is a computer geek who writes tutorials for his computer optimization
website and runs a computer
optimization and support forum.