The cure
for your PC's hangover.
This got your
attention? – Here is my list of invaluable utilities that are a must have and
have helped me with a minimal investment of money and time to prevent hangovers
of my various PC's.
This is Windows
based, as for linux you don't need any they are all in and about MAC's I freely
admit that I have absolutely no knowledge.
Firewall
- ZoneAlarm
Free for private use – pay for professional use.
It's a great little tool prevents access to your system allows you to see what
is going on and your standard applications can be allowed access automatically.
Find it at http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp
(free version under direct links)
Clean and manage RegScrub XP
If
you like me trial applications and use the PC a lot for surfing, development etc.
a lot of junk starts assembling in the Windows Registry. All applications have
records in there to allow windows to mange them – that's the theory – can be used
for malicious purposes like the dialler that refuses to go away This application
cleans up this registry and also has some tips and immediate tweaks to improve
performance of XP
You can download from here with no strings
attached : http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2048
Spy-software
Downloading from the Internet
can introduce so called spy bots. These will report on what you do e.g. where
you surf etc. Some will try to get your e-mail address or you may have given this
to get the program in the first place and send them back. Your live confirmed
address is worth between 5-10$. This application will inform you which ones are
on your system and help you to eliminate the ones you don't want.
The world
is more complicated it is now advisable to have a second version of this software
installed on parallel.
Lavasoft (Germany) has a scanner that
gets rid of the most deceiving spy bots its called Ad-Ware SE and the personal
edition is free.. Both together will keep your system clean and can even immunise
it.
There are some you may wish to allow this function see next paragraph
Toolbar
Find it http://security.kolla.de/news.php?lang=en
(top navigation click download but read the page anyway)
Lavasoft -
http://www.lavasoft.de/ the personal download guide page is here http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/
Google or Alexa toolbar - PopUp killer and guidance
You can download lot's of toolbars that are helpful but will encroach on your
actual browser window. Start using these selectively by clicking on View Toolbars
in your Explorer and where you can switch these on or off. I mainly use either
Googel or Alexa. Both not only give you information about the site you are surfing
they also prevent the dreaded popup's. Alexa is a bit more aggressive than google
but Alexa will ask on new sites if you allow popups. Remember if you want to see
these – some are by the nature of the site important- just hold down the CTL key
and click on the link you require.
Google – Shows a PageRank
which is an indication of the importance of the site as calculated by Google.
If it's grey it's simply very new or not a good choice. It also gives a quick
search window so you don't have to switch to Google when you wish to search. If
you are concerned that G spies ine can download the basics without allowing G
to send info. It's all very clearly labelled.
Alexa – which
is Amazon.com has a huge collection of sites and gives an Alexa ranking which
indicates if this is a high traffic site. It also has a search facility and the
interesting bit is the related sites or sites other people using this site have
wondered of to or come from. Both toolbars will send information about your surfing
behaviour. Google is regarded as inherently safe at least until they float the
company (IPO). Alexa reports back to Amazons database and your surfing is used
to calculate the overall ranking of sites. I have no problems with this. Both
can be switched off if you do not want to leave a too obvious trail.
Find
it Google.com and Alexa.com - to switch off Explorer view toolbars and click on
or off
Virus scan -prevention
AVG (free) or
any of the other names will do just update every now and than. If you want to
check upon them, suspect a virus or use an unfamiliar PC HouseCall is an on-line
virus checker.
Find it housecall http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
AVG http://www.grisoft.com You may have to
hunt for the free version now updated to 7.5 Last time I looked (Nov/2006) it
was here http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1
Using an ISP that filters viruses is a good idea (I still use AOL who do a pretty
good job) and just ignore e-mails you don't know about or don't have at least
a decent header. You may want to use mail washer or if you have community spirit
and a couple of minutes use a Report Spam button that some mail clients have –
these automatically delete the mail and if enough people complain starts bouncing
the mail at provider level.
These tools will keep your PC
clean and happy and it is basically all you need. They are safe, small, reliable
and have never let me down. All are from the Internet and are safe to download
and install.
Windows XP - System Restore (switch
off)
Sometimes to get rid of trojans etc. you will be
asked to switch off the automatic system restore XP offers in case things go badly
wron. Well where is it? The easiest way is to click control panel - find the system
icon - click and you will see a tab labeled system restore - click The first item
is a tick box where you can switch it off - You can do this also when you know
you have a stable system as it gets rid of any old restore points. - Once all
is finished just go back and switch it on again - I always do a full system restart
after this just to set a new restore point.
Now
where did I leave the Aspirin.... Safe and fun computing M@rtin MBGJ.Org Limited
serious about e
