Computer Security

Just wondering what the community uses to protect and maintain your computer. I run CCleaner (less often than I should) keep avast for my own sake and a little program called WiseCare 365. This is both my first computer, and my first computer build ever and I've never had a problem with performance or malware so whatever it is that's working Ill leave alone.

CCleaner is more maintenance than anything. Get defraggler from them when you do defrag your drives.Nifty program.Never heard of wisecare before.

Some here won't advocate using a AV.If you know what you're doing on the web,you don't need that. Valid point. But there are some amongst us who would like that "peace of mind", so to speak.

i think the only thing that Avast has done is report on false positives whenever I get into car forums, It's always the car forums that get flagged. I honesty don't think I need an AV, but like you said, its that peace of mind thing that keeps it there

The most important thing is to not be dumb with the computer, and the people you meet with it, and this means being lazy about keeping software updated, using an insecure web browser and browsing all over tons of porn sites, downloading lots of cracked games, and being trusting of untrustworthy people.

Microsoft Windows, by it's closed source nature, is inherently insecure. All Microsoft wants to do is make money off of you, is that motivation of theirs enough for you to completely trust your operating system? Contrast it with Linux, where the developers and the community are focused on stability and security and fixing problems, and being open about problems. Trusting open source sofware is essentially trusting yourself, as if you have the knowledge, you can determine if software is likely safe or not, and you can still do this even if you don't know programming by simply finding communities dedicated to supporting the software and finding consensus opinions. You don't need vast technical knowledge to be able to find out if a community of people think something is good or safe.

The safest web browser is Firefox with NoScript, Request Policy, Adblockplus as base add ons. Every Firefox user should use these add ons.

Do some general studying on networking, malware, and hacking, to learn how and why systems get compromised, and it will make you a much safer computer user, because once you have an understanding of the hows and whys, you know how to assess the safety of situations you come across on the internet. Did someone on the forum you thought you trusted send you a series of links in a private message, the first few being safe, but then the third or fourth did something weird? A lot of people would think a trusted member of the community who is known for sending trustworthy links would never do them any sort of harm, and would automatically trust whatever link they're being given. But safe computer usage, especially with Windows, requires you to determine the safety of every single link you click, even if it was sent to you by a trusted member of a community. Just because someone has been friendly with you for months or years on the internet, it doesn't mean they can't seriously own you if they really want to. That's how a hacker would operate on a forum. Pose as not just a regular, but maybe an upstanding member of a community, gain trust of people, and then hit them with their guards down.

 

Be inherently cautious with people on the internet.

 

 

Agreed with all of your points and I think it's about time I jump on Linux, thanks for the response