| Lockdown |
|
Home |
1. Do not use peer to peer programs such Kaza, Bearshare, Grokster, etc. Whether or not you realize it, most use spyware, which run in the background. God only knows what these programs are doing. I use Shareaza v2.1.0.0 which can be found at Shareaza Free.
2. Pop-ups. Very annoying and I hate them. I have taken to using Mozilla's Firefox the last several months and HIGHLY recommend anyone to download and use it. It is a very nice compact and secure little application. I have removed Internet Explorer shortcuts from my desktop and use it exclusively. It does not use Active X which gives a great deal of security over IE. It also has a lot of nice features which I won't bother with here. Trust me, just go downlaod it. Firefox Browser. FREE. Also here are some tweaks if you use a broadband connection with Firefox to load pages faster. a.Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries: network.http.pipelining, network.http.proxy.pipelining, and network.http.pipelining.maxrequests Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading. b. Alter the entries as follows: Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true” Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true” Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once. c. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0”. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. 3. Spyware. As I mentioned it runs in the background and can be a real dangerous thing. The following links are some stories about Spyware that gets installed on your system. These spyware programs are monitoring numerous things such as where you go, what mouse clicks and keyboard strokes (credit card info) you are doing and can send that to others on the internet. I use a program called Ad-Aware that you can download from Ad-Aware. Make sure you get the latest ref file to keep it up to date. You run it periodically and scan your system for any spyware. I highly suggest this program. Free. 4. Firewall. Hardware firewalls are too expensive for home users but you can use a software firewall like Zone Alarm. I like it, as it is easy to use. You can download a version from Zone Alarm. You do have to teach it at first but it will lock down your computer to prevent intrusions and programs on your system from accessing the internet without your permission. Free. 5. Virus Scanner. Up to you. I use Mcaffee, though a lot of people like Norton, both are good. Make sure if you use it that it is scanning the whole system (all files, not just .exe's) and that the virus definitions are up to date. ~$50. 6. Disable html in your email client. Disable html viewing in your email editor. I use Yahoo email at home and it allows you to turn off html code in incoming emails. This keeps spammers from reading cookies in an html document that they send to you. This can allow them to confirm your email is active by you simply reading the email. It can also be used to run virus code hidden in the html document, you don't even have to do anything other then read the email. Don't use Outlook unless you have to, many viruses are intended to exploit security loopholes in Outlook or Outlook Express. If you don't use them, you won't be vunerable. That said I do use it at work but am extremely careful with any unfamiliar emails sent to me. 7. Anti-Spam. Luckily I do not receive a lot of spam. I learned a few things to do and not to do. First of all, do not respond to their unsubscribe list. All this does is confirm your address is active. I know it goes contrary to what you believe but it will not help. There are a few interesting sites out there like Spam Haus, Spam Abuse, and Combat Spam. Free. Spam Haus is very aggressive and makes for a good read. For the personal user, the Spam Abuse page is very informative. The following link talks about how to report spam to the source by reading the header information on the email: How to Complain I use this in combination with the Combat Spam page to identify the spam’s ISP and make a complaint. Be sure to cc any complaints to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov. I like the Combat Spam page because it has a search engine that allows you to do a lookup on an IP address gathered from the header of the email. 8. I also use a special HOSTS file that I download from GDS and can be found here What is the HOSTS file? There are also more sites that can be obtained from the MVPS site. This allows you to block many pop-up ads and other advertisements. Be careful as you can block out many sites from being accessed. 9. Popup Ads through Windows Messenger service. These are particularly annoying and in my eyes a serious security flaw on Microsoft's part. Please refer to this link to learn how to disable the Windows Messenging Service.
|