For the average home computer user, what things at a minimum should we be doing to keep our computers and data safe?

As a typical user, you want to be able to sit down at your computer, connect to the Internet, check your email, play a game, all without worrying about safety or the amount of maintenance and work you need to do on your computer to make sure it is safe.

Well, Here is a suggested and basic list of items that I believe are the most important.

• Backup data
• Limited User Accounts
• Web limiting protection
• Antivirus protection
• Anti Spyware protection
• Firewall protection
• Knowing good browsing habits

This list is not very long or complicated, but by putting all the above “layers” in place, your computer should work the way you expect it too.

Backup:

This is the most important out of everything on this list.  People may pay $1000 for a decent computer, but after a year or two of storing documents, pictures, music, etc, this computer may hold a value of 100x the actual cost of the computer. I recommend a layered backup solution consisting of a minimum of 2 layers

1) Local backup. An automatic backup solution where your information is backed up on a daily or weekly basis onto something onsite, whether it is a external hard drive direct attached storage (DAS), network attached storage (NAS), CD’s, DVD’s, Tape, Etc. The easiest and most cost effective is a quality external hard drive and using a backup program such as Cobian (free) to perform the backups automatically. Search for Cobian Backup on google and download the latest version, configure as a service and your all set!

2) Remote Backup. A remote backup service through Mozy, or Carbonite, or my personally preferred Amazon S3 is crucial in the case of a fire or natural disaster. This will keep your data updated onto secured servers on a daily basis in case of a disaster. Think of it as a last resort backup. And starting at a couple dollars a month, its well worth the protection and peace of mind.

Limited User Accounts:

Limited User Accounts are extremely important. XP limited accounts seem to have all sorts of issues, and its like pulling teeth to install software while logged into a limited account, which in turn makes most people forget about it, then they let their kids have access to their admin account. This unfortunately is where a majority of home user computer crashes originate! Windows Vista and the new Windows 7 do a great job of limited users.

Web Limiting Protection

This is great and sometimes essential for parents with kids. A very good solution is the K-9 Web Protection, and it’s free!

Antivirus Protection

Antivirus Protection is obviously critically important. But I have stayed clear of the popular Norton and Mcafee antivirus programs for year, as I have found there are better (and cheaper), solutions that don’t bog the system down near as much. By far the best one on the planet I have came across is Sunbelt Software’s Vipre antivirus. It is the first antivirus software where I have noticed almost -None- system bog down after installing! In fact in most cases it speeds computers up because it removes malware that previous software didnt detect (see #5)

Antispyware Protection

AntiSpyware has become a household name. I still remember back in 2004 when spyware was becoming very popular, but nobody knew what it was. I probably had the pleasure of educating people on it a dozen times a week. Now Spyware is more dangerous than alot of viruses, because they hijack systems, and are responsible for billions of $ in identity theft every year. Almost all antivirus programs claim to also be antispyware, but fail miserably. Once again, Sunbelt’s Vipre shines in this category!

Firewall Protection

Firewall protection for the average user may cause more issues than its worth, as stringent firewalls will ask for permission on every single program trying to access the internet and the average user won’t understand the verbage used and may deny a good program or may allow a bad one… For most client’s, I recommend just keeping updated on all these other items in this layered defense, and than using the built in Windows Firewall. Of course, Sunbelt Softwares Firewall is top notch, and they will soon be implementing it in a Premium version of Vipre.

Good Browsing Habits

Knowing good browsing habits is essential, and knowing when NOT to say OKAY. Almost all viruses, spyware, malware, etc must be “invited” onto your computer and at some point you must “Allow” it to run. Once its running, you just allowed it to do whatever it wants, which than it starts feeding itself more malware from the Internet, and sharing your information whether for ID theft purposes, or just advertising statistics. This is still the one grey area where people need to use common sense and know enough or be willing to do a quick research to see if a program is legitimate.

This very do-able list will make your computer safe and effective to use for years to come. These are all things that the average or novice computer user can do. Of course your computer will still need its “oil change” maintenance every now and again, and that is where we step in. SOS Support is also very happy to offer a great price on coming to your home office or business and implementing these layers of security on your PC. After all, your data is priceless.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 6:04 pm and is filed under SOS Support Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.