Hello Guys and Gals so I am wanting to secure my computer the best I can I am skinto so payed programs arnt for me at the minute
Can someone tell me the best way to secure my computers from the scum that trys to get into it or do whatever it is they do
Any help would be much appreciated and thanks in advance
1. Keep Windows updated
2. Use a strong login password and don't share it about
3. Uninstall Java, or keep it updated
4. Install a free malware product - keep it updated, and scan regularly
5. Scan with an alternate product once in a while (e.g. ESET Online scanner)
6. Watch what you click/download
7. Keep an image of a know clean configuration (e.g. free Macrium Reflect)
My best advice is Sandboxie - Sandbox software for application isolation and secure Web browsing
Programs launched through Sandboxie don't write to disk as usual, but to a special sandbox area instead. When you close the sandboxed programs and delete the sandbox content, any malware and unwanted modifications will be deleted as well.
You can do a lot of other things in the settings for example block read access to private folders and only allow browsers to access the Internet. You could have another sandbox with admin rights to test new programs that requires elevated rights etc.
The free version will after 30 days display a message about upgrade information for 5 seconds one time every 24 hours. Besides that, almost all functionality is available in the free version. Except: force programs to run sandboxed regardless how they were launched, and use multiple sandboxes simultaneously. I do fine without those features.
A great review here: Sandboxie Review - gHacks Tech News
This is excellent advice, especially the suggestion for frequent images. That will be your lifeline that can always bail you out. Here is a tutorial on how to deal with that.
I go one step further. I try to stay away from the internet as much as possible with Windows. For the internet I use a virtual Linux system. All that costs me is 1GB of my RAM - no problem if you have 4GB of RAM or more.
Here is how to install it and set it up.
And this is how it looks when it is all set up.
Sandboxie is very safe but not very convenient for daily use. I found it a bit clumsy. That's why I switched to virtual Linux.
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