Protect your computer and data for next to nothing

Are you worried about losing your personal family photos or important work documents? Perhaps you have been a victim of identity theft or want to prevent this from happening to you? Your computer is vulnerable if you are connected to the Internet and will always be vulnerable no matter how much protection you have, but you can limit the scope of that vulnerability.

You can search the internet and discover some very scary statistics related to computer infections and data loss. Did you know that you can give yourself much more protection for very little money? Here are some tips, tricks, and ideas to help keep the bad guys out and keep your personal and professional information safe.

Antivirus/Antispyware: It’s staggering how many Windows-based PCs are infected with some form of malicious content. Some estimate that more than 90% of all Windows-based personal computers are infected with varying degrees of Trojan horses, viruses, spyware, adware, rootkits, browser hijackers, and more. What many people don’t know is that you can protect your computer for next to nothing in most cases. For starters, Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later have a built-in firewall. Make sure it is turned on and this will protect you from some incoming intrusions. You can also download free firewalls that are a bit more protective and will warn you about attempts to connect to the Internet from your computer or network that you may not even be aware of (Trojan Horse). One of these programs is called Commodo, it is completely free and it is one of the best rated personal firewalls on the market. He’s a little overzealous at times, but that’s a small price to pay for his protection.

Did you know that if you have a router connected to your network and your computers are wired, they are also protected by your router’s firewall? This firewall can be disabled, but it would take someone with some knowledge of how to log into the router and how the router works to do so.

Now, for virus and spyware protection, we highly recommend having an antivirus program and an antispyware program. Again, you can get some highly rated programs for free on the internet. Techs R Us’ preferred antivirus program is AVG. Visiting Grisoft.com will allow you to explore their collection of computer security software, as well as download a free, full version of their antivirus suite. Also note that most computers purchased through major computer vendors come pre-installed with at least a trial version of an antivirus program. Do not try to run two antivirus programs at the same time, as this can cause problems. The free version of AVG is also very light on your computer resources and requires very little attention from you once it is installed. You can set it to scan and update daily (we always set both tasks for 3am).

Regarding Antispyware, we have two recommendations. Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware are free programs and also don’t require as many resources from your computer as some of the more popular versions found at your local electronics store or pre-installed on your new computer. Both programs are stacked at the top of their class in their categories. Spybot is slightly faster than Ad-Aware.

What about slow computers? Well, if you have been diligent in your computer scans and you are sure there is no malicious content on your computer, then there are a few things you can do here. Windows comes pre-installed with programs to clean up your computer and make it run faster. You should perform a hard drive defragmentation if after all the maintenance and cleaning you think your computer is still running slowly. This can be found in Programs>Accessories>System Tools. There are programs that can take care of this tool for you, but they are unnecessary at best. Before defragmentation, you should try a disk cleanup. This will remove temporary Windows and Internet files, cookies, and other files that will drastically slow down your computer over time. This tool can also be found in Programs>Accessories>System Tools. If you are an advanced browser, you may want to do this frequently. There is a program that we at Techs R Us also use for disk cleanup and registry cleanup, it’s called CCleaner.

Finally, you should back up any files you don’t want to lose. Whether they’re on your computer, flash drive, or anywhere else, backing up your information is critical. The average lifespan of a hard drive is 2-5 years, depending on the type of computer, atmosphere, and usage. Flash drives are constantly getting lost and many of us have experienced a hard drive crash and the horror that comes with it…even if you have a backup of your data. We strongly recommend backing up to an external hard drive or online backup site. Techs R Us suggests Carbonite for your online data backup for several reasons. For a flat annual fee you can backup all your personal/professional data and they are the best in the business. It is also suggested that your backup is not in the same place as your computer in the event of a disaster (flood, fire, other natural disasters).