Before I actually reveal this powerful method that will send you computer technician scurry for cover I’ll go over a few things you’ll need in place for it to be effective.

A virus scanner

You can get several different ones free from the internet (legally free) so there is really no need to dump a bunch of money into Norton’s pockets. Unless of course you like beating your head off the desktop because of how slow it makes your computer run and how often it causes conflicts with other programs. Hasn’t happened to you yet? Give it time, it will.

2 Free anti-virus solutions:

• Avast (windows) and
  Linux edition
• AVG Anti-virus (also read this
  article by Matt McGee of The Daily Fuzz)

A *ware scanner

For the uninitiated the * is a wild card. So essentially you want a scanner that will look for not just spyware, but also malware, adware, and any other “ware” that happens to be floating around. Some people recommend running them at all time your computer is on. I don’t because of the performance hit. I recommend manually running scans 1-3 times a week depending on how heavily you use the computer. For the most part you can just start the scan and go watch tv or whatever while it works. Then you come back take a look at what it found and authorize it to delete the stuff or not.

3 Free *ware solutions:

• Adaware SE
• Spybot S&D
• Super Anti-Spyware

Something aside from Internet Explorer

The problems with IE’s security are legendary among computer users. From PHD level experts to utter novices there’s not a single person who hasn’t heard of them. So why keep tempting fate? For the love of God try one of these alternate browsers. Spend 30 minutes getting used to it and you’ll never want to go back to IE.

2 Free alternate browser solutions:

• Firefox – Simply the best
• Opera – Used to be add supported, not sure anymore…?

A firewall

A firewall helps keep bad people from seeing your stuff either because they are dishonest and want to break in or because you have left a door open accidentally. For this we’ll keep it simple and just recommend the well known and solid as a rock standby, Zone Alarm Free Home edition (click where it says “I only want basic ZoneAlarm protection).

Now you have everything in place to make effective use of this TOP-SECRET to avoid internet related computer problems that I am about to reveal to you… What is this method?

USE COMMON SENSE

That’s it, that’s all there is to it. Just use common sense.

• You know not to open email attachments from people you don’t know so don’t
• You know not to download things from shady looking websites so don’t
• You know not to surf porn sites (especially without protection, no not that kind of protection) so don’t
• You know not to download and run applications from P2P networks so don’t
• You know not to give out your passwords to anyone, especially strangers so don’t

We could go on and on and on but there’s no need. Now that I have revealed this TOP-SECRET method (use common sense) to you there’s no need to worry about all the things you shouldn’t do.