Safe Surfing

By Ian Gizmo Richards (edited)
Security products are not all that important. The main way to protect a PC is not with good security products but rather with good security practices.

Protecting your PC from infection is analogous to crossing a busy road unharmed. Stepping onto the road is like logging on to the internet. Crossing safely is like avoiding infection; you don't want to get hit.
Now there are two ways of crossing that road The first way is to be very careful about where you cross and to be watchful and aware of the dangers. In other words, use all your senses to make sure you don't get hit. Another approach is to protect yourself with something like an army tank and cross anywhere, anytime. If you get hit, you rely on the tank to protect you.
Now no sensible person would adopt the latter approach to crossing a road, yet when it comes to computer security that's exactly what most folks do. "Hey man, I'm using the latest McNortsky Super Security suite and nine other security scanners. I can do anything I want on the net and I'm invincible"
Sorry baby, you are not. You are the guy in the tank crossing the road who's about to get trashed by a big speeding milk tanker.

If you want real computer security, you need to adopt safe computing practices. These are described here and here Bookmark or add to Favourites and /or print out these pages.

Ian Richards is a well known and respected American computer expert who ran the techsupport site and a Newsletter for years. He now writes a column for the paid version of Windows Secrets.