Here’s a quick public service announcement from yours truly:
COMPUTER VIRUSES ARE EVERYWHERE!
There, that ought to do it. I think of myself as a pretty secure guy when it comes to using and maintaining my computer. When people ask what to use on their computer, I usually give the usual suggestions that I rely on (for a pretty trouble free computer to this point) for my Windows PC (not a Mac guy!)
- Keep your system up to date – visit www.windowsupdate.com to run a scan. It’ll step you through it.
- Get Windows defender – head to www.windowsdefender.com to grab this. It’s free and is from Microsoft. It does a pretty decent job of preventing spyware from entering your machine. Also, I love it for the feature of removing programs that start when your computer starts up . . . soooo much time wasted watching the hourglass!
- Get an Anti Virus software – now, I’m a frugal guy (ask my wife). I was always of the opinion that the anti-virus stuff would bog down my machine (and Norton certainly did). However, I’m using AVG and it’s doing great. And, best of all, it has a free version. Now, it’s REALLY hard to find from their website, but if you head to www.download.com and search for AVG, it’ll show a listing with the free version.
I say all of that to say that I just upgraded AVG from version 7.5 to version 8.0 and found 40 new threats on my machine. All in my inbox! I don’t open attachments or read unknown emails (spams) and, still, there they were. Let that be a lesson . . . these are a few extra steps, but at least they can all be automated so you don’t have to think of them.
Happy computing, everyone!
