Internet Security for Laptops
The internet is littered with threats like Spam, Viruses, Spyware, Hackers and More. Yet the average computer is only minimally protected from these adversaries. Under these circumstances it is inevitable that you will suffer slowdowns, loss of data or worse, identity theft. No home computer connected to the internet is ever likely to be impregnable. Internet access will always carry risk. Yet with a series of mostly simple precautions your computer can be better protected than the vast majority of Laptops.
Use a good internet security suite.
Every computer connected to the internet should have a firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware protection. Most Internet security suites have all these and more. The best choices currently are by Norton and McAfee. There are other solid choices as well. At the very least you could get by with the free Zonealarm firewall, and a free anti-spyware application like Spybot or Ad-Aware, but I strongly recommend that you purchase a good anti-virus scanner and keep the subscription up to date.
Turn on Automatic updates.
Every day hordes of hackers are writing new exploits to take advantage of windows vulnerabilities. Fortunately, hordes of programmers over at Microsoft are also busy patching holes in windows XP and Vista. However, for you to take advantage of this support, windows update must be turned on. (Because windows no longer is providing this kind of support for older versions, you should upgrade to XP or Vista)
Use Strong Passwords
Amazingly some computer users don't use passwords at all. That is like leaving the keys in the ignition of your car with the doors unlocked. Most others use a simple word or easy to guess numeric password like their birthdate. Use a pass phrase instead. Here is a trick I use. Take a favorite phrase from a song, book or movie and use the first leter from each word. Then capitalize a couple of the letters add a special character and a number. For example 'Here's looking at you, kid' becomes 'HlaYk', now add a special character lets chose '!' and a semi meaningful number like the last two digits of the year you graduated high school '75' your password becomes something like 'HlaYk!75' Far stronger than your birthdate or your dogs name and still not too hard to remember. Don't write down your password, but you could write down "Casablanca ! Lincoln High" and that should be enough to jog your memory.
Replace Outlook Express
Outlook Express is used by the vast majority of email users for their email. For this reason it is a huge target for hackers. Many people that find themselves infected with a viruses got the infection through an email attachment. In addition many viruses will take control of outlook express and send a copy of themselves to everyone in your address book. There are a few freeware email programs that are quite good and largely escape notice from hackers. Thunderbird and Eudora are both good choices. Get Thunderbird here.
Replace Internet Explorer
Despite still maintaining a majority of internet users. Internet Explorer has long been surpased by a handful of other browsers. In particular, Firefox has garnered a large chunk of IE's user base by improving on IE in several ways. In addition to better stability, flexibility and a rubust collection of add-ons, Firefox has maintained a better security record over the last few years. While IE has been plagued with frequent vulnerabilities and slow patches, Firefox has been both more bulletproof and more nimble with patches and updates when holes have been found. Get Firefox here.
Miscellaneous Thoughts
Most people never turn on file and printer sharing, but you should make sure that you haven't unless you really need it. Disable the guest account in windows XP. There are a few additional steps you could take to be even safer, but most are pretty complicated and if you have done everything up until here, you are reasonably safe and definitely far more prepared than the vast majority of computers on the internet.
