How do you "secure" your home computer?

[jw7]

Just curious what everyone uses.

Here's what I do...

1) Zone alarm, lets me regulate which programs I allow to talk on the internet

2) Pop-up blocker

3) IE "Security" trusted sites. I set the default to no cookies, no scripts, etc... If I trust a site I add it to my "Trusted sites" zone and then allow cookies and scripts.

4) Only use "yahoo" addresses for registering for sites which I may expect spam from.

So far its worked pretty well, I only get like 1-2 spams/week, and have no weird icons dropped on my desktop or new favorites added.

 

[Mike Olbinski]

1. Zone Alarm.
2. Norton 2003
3. Cloudmark spam blocker
4. Register with non-important email address

That's about it..

Mike

 

[Ryanwb]

I would add:

1) Download Ad-aware 6, run and update it regularly. This utility removes "spyware" from your computer.

http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10186632.html?tag=lst-0-3

 

[jw7]

Originally posted by Ryanwb
I would add:

1) Download Ad-aware 6, run and update it regularly. This utility removes "spyware" from your computer.

http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10186632.html?tag=lst-0-3

I do have an older version of ad-aware, but every time I run it, it doesn't find anything.

Do you think that I got the bases covered with my IE security settings?

 

[Ryanwb]

Down load the latest version of Ad-aware definately!

Yes, your IE settings are good.

 

[jw7]

Originally posted by Ryanwb
Down load the latest version of Ad-aware definately!

Yes, your IE settings are good.

Just did - thanks for the link

Only 2 registry entries...no .exe's

Not too shabby!

 

[Ryanwb]

Originally posted by jw7
Just did - thanks for the link

Only 2 registry entries...no .exe's

Not too shabby!

I installed it on my parents computer because they kept having these porn icons appear on their desktop. I kid you not, there was like 450 items ad-aware found and deleted. That program is a miracle worker...and its free.