August 24, 2003

So long, virus attacks?

Kathy Kinsley provides links to free virus protection and firewall programs. If you do not have both of these types of programs installed, please do so. I mean, after all, if you can do it for nothing and it might save you big bucks if you had to hire someone to erradicate a nasty virus from your system, it does make a bit of sense to take precautions, doesn't it? Oh, and please stop opening those email attachments that come from senders you don't recognize. In fact, I don't even open ones from senders I recognize unless it is something I was expecting.

I am geek/0™ and yet have been online for almost a decade without ever having gotten a virus infection. I am pretty sure I have only gotten alarms from protection programs on a couple of occasions. You do not have to be a techno-wiz to keep your system secure, you just have to use common sense. Uh, and in additon to those programs that Kathy provided, I think everyone should have Ad-Aware. It is also free for personal use. It is very useful for tracking down those data miners that send personal information to websites through cookies.*

*Or at least I think this is what it does. Some techie might be able to explain it more correctly, but I do think my explanation gets to the gist of the matter.

Posted by Tiger at August 24, 2003 10:56 AM
Comments

The spyware watches where you go and what you click and sends that info directly to the servers of whatever company the spyware belongs to. Cookies not necessary.

I usually do recommend AdAware as well, but on this was I was specifically concerned with security, not privacy. :)

Posted by: Kathy K at August 24, 2003 11:03 AM

Thanks for clearing that up Kathy, and for publishing those links to the programs. I am sure that information is going to be so very helpful to many, and such is the reason I felt compelled to point to your post. ;)

Posted by: Tiger at August 24, 2003 11:30 AM