Is My Computer Safe?

I get asked this question so often that I decided to try and answer it on my blog. Safe computing is a relative term; inherently by design all computers are unsafe and are prone to attack. The real question should be, “what steps should I take to protect myself and my computer?” This is the actual question that I will try to address in this topic.

Everything you need to maintain your computer and keep it relatively safe is available for free, there should be no reason to run to circuitbuymartshack and shell out a couple hundred bucks to some kid, nor should you pay 40-150 bucks a year for an anti-virus subscription. That is correct I said FREE, no strings, no gimmicks, FREE, of course from time to time they will try to sell you the paid version, but the free version does the job just as well.

At a bare minimum all computers should have anti-virus, anti-spyware, and a firewall.

Like a car a computer should have regular maintenance to keep it running smoothly. There are also free products that attempt to clean and maintain computers that do a fairly good job, but I have not found one that does as good a job as a good technician, nor have I found one product that does it all. While these products offer little in the way of protection, they do a great job in cleaning the garbage out that manages to slip through. Secondarily they also clear your computing history of any trash that may accumulate. I will list a couple of these free products under cleaners.

As stated before all these links are to the FREE version. All computers at a minimum should have one of each of the following: Anti-Virus Software, Anti-Spyware Software, A firewall.

Anti Virus

AVG Anti-Virus – Rock solid protection for free
Avira Anti-Virus – My second choice for anti-virus when AVG  is blocked.
Avast Anti-Virus – Choice 3, not as easy to install and setup up.

Anti Spyware/Malware

Spybot Search & Destroy – Aggressive malware protection on the fly
Malwarebytes – Good cleaner, not so good protection.
Ad-aware - Good cleaner, free version does not allow scheduled scan.

Firewalls

Windows Firewall - Included with windows XP SP2, and Vista.
Ashampoo Firewall – Easy to setup good windows alternative.

Cleaners/Tuners

Advanced System Care – This does a great job, reg cleaner, cookies, cache.
Glary Utilities – One click cleaning of junk files and errors
Smart Defrag – Small fast scheduled disk defrags.


So there is the short list, hope it helps, I tried to keep it as simple as possible while affording decent protection. One from each list will keep you moderately protected. Downloading a couple from each and saving them for later use may save you in a pinch.  Download.com is also a good source of free software to help keep you clean and protected. Check out the top 20 list here.

Have a safe compute,


Kyle V. Grace
CEO: PGMData.com
508.657.GEEK
508.657.4335