Howto: browse the internet safely

Helo to all. This post is kind of a kick off for my new series in this blog. If it do gets better, i might just make a new blog based on it. For now, i am just going to give you all advices on a field where i had done so much research but still have a lot more to learn, computing.

To kick it all of, the first topic is about security.

We all know that the internet is a dangerous place to go without a good set of protection tools, especially if you are using Microsoft© Windows® series of operating systems. With so much news on more and more exploits discovered and exploited out in the wild now, there is no better time to be concerned about these issues. Your own precious data might be released in the wild, and used against you in various ways. The most notable way is your stolen credit card number being used to buy hell of a lot of things through e-bay orany other online shopping sites. Then the next time you check on your credit card usages, to your horror, you find that you have a debt amounting to millions.

ok, that's just one senario that might happen. Yes, I know most of the people who will frequent this blog don't do as much online shopping as I do, but there WILL be usages for your personal infos and passwords. So it's always better to be on the safe side rather than to be sorry.

Here are some simple steps that you can do to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of online fraud.

1. Whenever an e-mail comes to your inbox and asks for your private information or details on e-bay/bank/paypal accounts, ignore it. They are most probably phishing e-mails sent out by people with bad intentions who wants to get their hands on your private data. If you are in doubt, call or e-mail the representatives of the institutions involved.

2. If you are using Windows operating system(any version), make sure you protect yourself with at least an antivirus and antispyware programs. If you can't afford to buy the licences from the big guns (Symantec, Mc Afee), there are a lot more antivirus vendors out there like AVG, Avast, Anvira and some others that will offer you decent protection without slowing your computer to a crawl. As for antispyware protection, you can get decent scanners from Lavasoft Ad-Aware, Spybot search and Destroy, and Windows Defender. Remember to update the programs often, and scan your system once in a while.

3. Remember, the worst link in the chain is the human that is operating the system, i.e. yourself. It's at the outmost importance that you adopt safe-internet practices.

-Don't just forward everything that comes into your mailbox, especially those which are likely
to contain frauds and false news. It will only serve to spread panic. If you want to verify the
authencity of these mails, you may surf to www.hoax-slayer.com to get a accurate info on that particular topic.

-Don't store sensitive passwords (bank login details etc) within your browser. Always log in manually from the front page of these pages by typing in the username and the passwords yourself, and not storing it in the internet browser's cache. Laziness will cost you a bomb in this case, so don't be lazy here.

-Don't do your critical transactions using a public computer(school computer labs, libraries, cyber cafes etc.). You'll never know that the computers have keyloggers installed or not. So like always, it's better to be safe than sorry.

So here we are, some simple to take steps to ensure that you can surf the net safely. There are a lot more steps to take of course. But for now, these will suffice to make your internet-surfing experience relatively safe and enjoyable. So, until the next time I post another entry in this long unupdated blog, take care always there yah...

*tata~

metta

seehua
-Let's create a world full of LOVE =)