Securing your computer

My dad recently called me to let me know that he'd gotten a new computer (without consulting me). We'd talked in the past generally about some options (Windows, Macs, Linux) and their relative strengths and weaknesses. For his sake, I kind of hoped he'd get a Mac, although I'm not an Apple fan. I would have really loved to see him get onto Linux, but I was a bit afraid of that, since I live several hours away. However, he chose the easy path, or not, and purchased a new Windows 7 box.

What prompted this post, and the ones to follow, was part of the conversation we had. As a background, he's been owned a few times in the past and had his box compromised. It's even been rendered unusable, and he's had to pay to get it cleaned up since I moved to another state. I've done what I could when I could, but it was sufficiently irregular to be of limited benefit. Anyway, he said that he guessed he was going to have to learn more this time around so it wouldn't happen to him again.

So, I got thinking about the advice I could give to him and email him. Then, I thought of all the other family members I support, and thought how nice it would be to share with them. I'd done little with this blog (I've been slightly more active with a private one I have), but this seemed like a good use for it. Easily available, easy for me to update so it stays fresh, and easy to direct family members to.

So, I'm going to cover a few items. I'm going to try to start at a high level and then start to zero down. The suggestions I'm going to make are what I'd make based on my experiences and level of expertise (or lack thereof). This will hopefully serve as a one-stop shop for family and friends. What's that? You're neither. Well then, I guess you've just stumbled upon this from a search. You're welcome to use or not use the info herein. But you should probable be aware of the following.

All the standard disclaimers apply. This information comes with no warranty, express or implied. You should follow all recommendations or instructions at your own risk. I try to provide correct information, but it's possible that incorrect or outdated info may show up. What I suggest is geared toward particular known users at a particular skill level. As such, this information may not be the best information for your particular situation. etc. etc.

So, here's a summary of what I plan to cover:
Choice of platform (OS, hardware, etc.)
Securing your OS
Securing your programs
Your browser and you
improving your searches
protecting yourself from malware
protect your identity
passwords
whatever else I think of.

Thanks for reading. I hope you guys find it useful and easy to follow and understand.

Antivirus

Fighting malware used to be so much more easier. You purchased and installed an antivirus program, and along with some best practices, you were pretty well done. Not so anymore. There's all kinds of malware out there: viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, adware, to name a few. Plus, blended threats, that combine the attributes of more than one. So, we fight back with layered security measures. But, good antivirus software is still at the heart of that arsenal. Well, computer savvy, cautious users are actually the best measure, but let's work with what we've got.

So, what antivirus software do I use?

avast! antivirus home edition

Why? Because it's free, and I'm cheap. I like free. If I wasn't a gamer, I'd probably be using Linux (but that's for another post). It has some annoying traits. I've had to deal with some false positives. The popup notification can be annoying. It kept wanting to eat part of my wife's Sims install. I had to completely remove it from my gbpvr machine because my remote would stop working and the aforementioned popups were annoying when trying to watch TV. But it keeps the viruses away (so far as I know). And it's free.

AVG is another good one that's also free. I've used both. I think I switched to avast because it would search for updates whenever it found a connection instead of being a scheduled task. With AVG, your computer had to be on at that particular time to get updates. I haven't looked at it in a long time. Someday I'll check again, and see if that's been changed. If so, I'll probably switch back. Or I could try both. Usually, multiple antivirus programs on a computer don't play well together. However, I've received a report that AVG and avast will peacefully coexist on the same Windows machine. If I try it out, I'll report back here.

My Symantec Antivirus tirade:

I've used Symantec/Norton (in fact, that's what I use at work). I haven't used the home version in quite awhile (although to be fair, I liked it when I had it... several years ago). I know corporate edition seems to get worse with each version. I started with 7.6, and it took some doing, but eventually I got it setup just right and it ran without a hiccup. Now, I'm on 10.1, and I haven't been able to get the last couple of versions working all the way correctly, even after reading the directions (yeah, I do that) and trolling their forum/kb mess. They've had the same registry key get set incorrectly for the last 3(?) versions, even though it was in the errata 3 editions ago (you would have thought maybe they might have managed to straighten that out). You couldn't even install 10.0 in ms virtual server. 10.1 you could, but none of the extras. I don't know how their consumer edition fares, but I'm seriously considering switching at the corporate level.

Summary:
Get some antivirus software. Even if you're not connected to the Internet, you probably swap disks with your machine at work. The only time I could see you not needing it is if you never install anything, aren't connected to any other computers, and never use removable media.

My first post

So, another blog. Eh.

I'm not one of those guys who does/wants something just because someone else does/has something. I've been working in IT since 1999, so I've known about blogs for awhile. And while I was kind of intrigued by the idea, I didn't really see much need in me putting my voice out there. Truthfully, I didn't think I had anything that important to say, and didn't want my words to be lost out there in a sea of banality.

So, what changed? Well, I've noticed this curious phenomenon with people I know, especially co-workers. I keep getting asked the question, "So, what {insert product type here} do you use?" or something similar. Not, "What's the best," but what do I use. As I said, curious. Certainly, there are far more knowledgeable people out there, creating, testing, and reviewing products. I can only conclude, then, that I'm being asked because the askers either figure I've already done the research and can save them from needing to do the research, or they don't know how to do the research themselves. So, since so many people ask, I thought I'd answer the questions once, and then I can just refer them here. That's efficient. Or lazy. Hmm.

The other reason is that I should be studying. Sometimes, though, I just need a break. I also like to talk about computers, and my wife is a pretty good listener. However, sometimes she gets tired of hearing about this stuff. So, this is an outlet.

Anyway, we'll see how well I keep up. I'm not very good at keeping up with my correspondence, so I would expect this to be sporadic, at best.