General Security - Sunday, August 10, 2008 22:48 - 2 Comments

Securing your computer from hackers

keeping your computer secure by installing antispyware, antivirus and firewall

As with so many things in life, the first step in protecting your computer is to approaching everything you do with forethought and using certain precautions.  But also like other aspects in life, no matter how much you try to plan for the uncertainties, you can’t anticipate everything that could go wrong.  You can resist the urge to click on emails that are obviously junk and spam, or delete mail received from people you don’t know or want mail from, but there’s no way you can know ahead of time when a telemarketer will catch you unawares, or a mugger will step out of the shadows, and no amount of careful health precautions can prevent the common cold.  It is important to the security of your data to take action in advance, and to make sure that you have put disinfecting solutions into the data stream, to keep it from both being infected, and from spreading any infections that sneak in anyway.

Luckily, there are steps that can be taken with your computer to keep it safe and healthy.  For instance, installing anti-spyware can prevent marketing campaigns from turning your machine into a database from which they draw information.  Having an antivirus program always running can help to avoid a virus from slowly down system performance, or sapping away it’s valuable strength and speed.  And installing a firewall acts as a shield around your computer system, preventing infection by not allowing malicious programs from ever getting on to it in the first place.  The old saying holds true in the computer world, a small amount of prevention is worth many times the amount required to cure the system of infections, or getting away from outside influences who would rob it of data or assault it.  These things can be done by using a variety of unconnected software, but having all those applications running in the background amount to wearing a suit of armor to go to work in an office.. the strength of the system is sapped away by the resources used to keep them running.

There are, however, products available that can perform all of these protective tasks in a single package.  Symantec has been one of the most trusted names in system protection and performance tweaks for nearly twenty years.  And McAfee trails not much behind, and is a pioneer in virus protection applications.  There are other packages available that perform these tasks in a combined way, but there aren’t any other brand names as well known or widely trusted, especially in commercial and enterprise applications where more than a single computer are at risk and must be carefully monitored.  With resident modules in the system which look for any incoming virus threats or trojans hidden within seemingly innocent images or programs, and providing firewall protection that blocks your network from known troublemakers, these two companies can greatly reduce the anxiety over what can be trusted.  And just as friendships and relationships change over time, so do the sites you find objectionable on the internet.  Again, the industry leaders allow you to make changes in your firewall to block email or other communication from sites that are no longer on good terms, leaving them knocking at the doors, but unable to penetrate your defenses and do any harm to the data in your network or computer.

Article written by MyComputerAid.com