Newsletter Archives

April, 2006

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PC Tips & Tricks #4
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Last month, we explained how to make your internet searches more powerful. This month, we're going to explain the first steps in keeping your PC safe.

There are three main things you need to make your PC secure – 1) a firewall, 2) anti-virus protection, 3) Spy/Adware detection software.

The first thing you really should do is make sure your Windows operating system is fully up to date with the latest patches. To do this, go to the Microsoft Windows Update web site (http://update.microsoft.com) to check your computer and install the latest updates. This will include security patches amongst other improvements.

More and more people have always on, broadband connections to the internet. Anyone that’s on the internet should really have a firewall installed. A firewall serves two purposes – it prevents others from connecting to your computer and prevents any rogue programs on your computer from sending information to other computers without you knowing.

Some hardware, like a router, contains its own built-in firewall. These are perfectly adequate but can require significant tweaking as they are set up to block any incoming attempts (no good if you use peer-to-peer and/or some messaging software) and allow all outgoing communications (a risk if you happen to have a malicious program on your PC).

Windows XP comes with its own firewall which you can set by going to Start/Control Panel/Security Center. Within the Windows Firewall settings, you can indicate which programs are to be allowed to communicate with your computer, if you know where the program is within your Windows directory.

The most popular, free firewall on the market is ZoneAlarm and can be downloaded at www.zonelabs.com. (Select Download & Buy and then ZoneAlarm.) It’s very easy to use as it will notify you any time a new program tries to access the internet. You simply decide then if it’s a program you want to allow to send data (i.e. web explorers, automatic updating software, FTP programs, etc) and/or receive data as a server (i.e. peer-to-peer, instant messaging software, etc).

There are several other firewall applications on the market, and the following site provides a good list of the most popular ones and comparison to their own software, Outpost - http://www.starday.com.au/outpost/compare/compare.htm.

For more information on firewalls, we’d also recommend the following sites:
http://www.free-firewall.org
http://www.howstuffworks.com/firewall.htm

That's the first step in securing your PC. Next month, we’ll talk about anti-virus software.

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