Safely Browsing The Internet

No! you can put your surfboard away, we are not talking about that kind of surfing, we are talking about “safely surfing the internet”

internet-iconI know we spent some time in a previous article, setting up Internet Explorer, but that is not the end of the story unfortunately. You see as with surfing in the sea, there are also numerous dangers lurking hidden from sight & under the guise of a legitimate website.

No matter what we do, there are always these dangers lurking, waiting to catch us unaware & ultimately to cause havoc, steal sensitive data & generally disrupt our evenings surfing hahaha much like a shark attack if your surfing on the sea !!!

So what can we do to try and protect or at the very least lessen the dangers & risks…?

First and foremost, you should have a good anti-virus package installed and properly set up, also a good spyware package for the simple reason that most spyware/malware is not usually detected by anti-virus programs. However I have just read earlier this evening that BitDefender’s new package for 2009 does indeed deal with spyware & malware also.

Secondly you should not under any circumstances keep sensitive data like bank details etc on your PC. You may think your secure and have all the latest security installed, but it’s too late when some spotty faced geek hacks your PC and steals a wad from your bank account.

Thirdly there are numerous obscure websites that offer taskbars or searchbars, call them what you will ! At the end of the day many of these offer a doorway into your PC without you even knowing it. So my advice to you is this, install Googles toolbar with built in popup blocker, it is tried and tested and lets face it, Google is the biggest search engine out there, so what is the point in having any others…??? To get the Google Toolbar then just click the following link ;

Google Toolbar V5.0 Beta – IE 6 & 7

Google Toolbar v5Beta for Fire Fox2

Ok now finally you need to be aware that there are many websites out there that are like shark infested waters, they are either infested with viruses, trojans or spyware & malware. The only thing we can do to help you out is give you a list of websites to avoid. Bad-Sites This is not an exhaustive list, but there are around 76 websites listed that are well known for infections of one sort or another. Just click the link to download. Ok that’s it for now so have fun & safe surfing !