First Aid:Protect Computer and Information With Safe Browsing

There are 1000s of viruses being made every single day. Whenever you browse the internet there is a chance you can get a harmful file even if you were to go to a relatively "safe" site. Find out what the current cyberspace environment is like now and how you can protect yourself.

People have no idea how dangerous the computer has become. It is no wonder computer repair and virus removal are becoming one of the most lucrative businesses to be in. Everyday thousands of people, most of them in foreign countries, are making tools and programs that steal personal information from unsuspecting citizens. Nigeria, Russia, and the Philippians are the worse but there are other countries whose citizens are engaging in this behavior without any repercussions (or very little) as well

1)  You need to be on guard when you are surfing the net. It started out as a safe place. In the mid to late nineties you had to watch out for sites that had pornography on them and certain e-mails you got with attachments. There were not that many of them and the task of avoiding them was small.

2)  The scene has totally changed. It is what keeps computer virus removal and repair companies in the black all year round. Viruses, adware, malware, and spyware are all over the place. There is no safe place. Large highly reputable sites get attacked all the time. You can get some damaging files just while shopping on Disney. 1000s of these harmful files are being created everyday and this trend does not seem to be slowing at all.

3)  You need to really careful. You may not realize it but people have literally gotten their bank accounts drained in several days. When you pay with your debit card online you open yourself up to all kinds of trouble if someone were to get a hold of that number.

4)  A friend of mine in Vancouver, WA also purchased all of his tools online. He was a carpenter. I told him not to use his debit card online and to make certain that his computer had the proper protection before he bought anything online. As usual he never listened. One week he went on a fishing trip and as he was driving back his debit card was declined when he tried to get some fuel. Luckily he had cash on him to buy gas to get back into town. When he gets back in town he goes to the bank to look at his account. This is a guy who always is loaded and pays all of his bills like clockwork so you can imagine his confusion. He finds out that someone has drained his bank account. Over the four days he was fly fishing someone was stealing his money, piece by piece. Someone had gotten a hold of his card number when he was buying a tool on the internet.

5)  It is imperative for people to use good judgment when they are doing anything on the internet. Just browsing around can lead you to sites with malicious files. It might not even be the sites fault. There may be content on there that the webmaster does not even know about.

6)  I recommend everyone to bring their hardware to a computer repair technician for regular maintenance every couple months. You want to prevent bad files from taking a hold of your computer. They spread like diseases and can very quickly travel through your network corrupting your files and stealing your information.

7)  Bring your computer to someone who knows how to scan your PC and delete any files that could be harmful to you. Be proactive and become very discriminate about where you go online. If there is an e-mail you are suspicion about do not open it. Do not download any files from any source that has a very high reputation. Torrent sites as well as P2P sites like Lime wire are breeding grounds for viruses. Stay away from them.

8)  Take whatever stops necessary to prevent your computer from being corrupted. We all depend on our computers now in 2010 but we have to understand the environment we are living in and be careful.