A. Make sure you have an Antivirus program installed and activity scanning for

• programs that are accessed
• Emails arriving
• MWS Messenger/Windows messenger received files

B. Ensure that your Antivirus Definitions are Up to Date - otherwise it may be pointless having the program running.

This may require you to purchase a subscription to the updates

There are some excellent ones around and one that is even free.

For more details refer to the Antivirus FAQ's

It is strongly recommended that you install either a hardware or software Firewall whenever connected to the internet.

There is one built into Windows XP.

For more details on Firewalls refer to the Firewall FAQs

Spyware can cripple your system and is as much a threat as a Virus or Worm.

For more details on Spyware - refer Spyware FAQs

It may seem nice that someone, you do not know has sent you an email, but opening it is almost as dangerous as letting a complete stranger into your home.

If it is not SPAM then it is highly likely that it could contain a virus or worm.

Most good Antivirus Software packages should catch and hopefully neutralize this, however new threats are constantly arising and if you do not have up to date Antivirus definitions, you may be at risk.

Many emails now arrive on a PC via Hotmail, Yahoo or other web-based email systems, particularly where other members of a family want their own email address. Unless your Antivirus software caters for this, this may be a hole in the security of your PC.

Regardless of how an email arrives on your PC, do not open any unsolicited email and never open attachments that arrive with such emails. Be ware also of eCards or eGreetings.

Some Worms and Viruses propagate themselves around the world by grabbing email addresses from your email program, and masquerading as someone else, possibly a friend, sending themselves to these email addresses.

eCards and/or egreetings can arrive in two forms:

1. as an email attachment which needs to be opened in order to present a greeting or play music etc
2. As a LINK (or URL) within an email, requesting you to click it and go to a web site to view a message, supposedly from a friend.

Whilst friends may find cute things on the internet which they want to share with you, and some of these may be harmless, the purpose behind many of these is typically one or more of the following

• to capture your email address and the address of the sender for future email lists and potentially SPAM
• to get you to run a program or go to a web site, which can then run program code within that page, to initiate Spyware, Viruses or Worms

It is strongly suggested that you

• do not put friends or yourself at risk by sending eCards or eGreetings, no matter how cute
• do not open such electronic greetings when they arrive
• NEVER, EVER open unsolicited emails and also be ware of strange looking emails from people you DO Know

McAfee highlights a new Worm which appears as a Christmas greeting in your INBOX! - more information.

Free software is usually only FREE for a reason.

either:

1. It is shareware and it is crippled or expires in time
2. It is a genuine freebie, with no strings attached because it leads you to the more features / more expensive version, or
3. It is free because the author want s to get it running on your machine for his or her purposes.

Discernment in this area can save you a lot of grief.

Refer Spyware FAQs and Antivirus FAQs

Another form of Free software of which to be wary, are smilies and Free toolbars.

It is no coincidence that the two recommended Anti - Spyware tools actually remove many of these toolbars, "search bars" and things which appear cute, but can cripple your computer system.

Refer to comments on Downloads above

What better way is there for someone to get you to run their program on your PC than to offer you a free screen saver.

• It is run quite often, automatically
• When it runs, no one is using it so your PC is basically idle, and the program can then do whatever it likes with your data, email addresses, and/or private information

Refer to comments on Downloads above

File Sharing or Peer to Peer (P2P) systems generally work by getting people to download a "client" program to their PC. This program typically then

• communicates with a central server to track who is online and what files are available
• Opens up portions of your hard disk for other people throughout the world to gain access to music, games, programs or other files on your PC, depending on how you set it up
• Provides you with access to other people's files in a similar manner
• Makes your PC vulnerable to viruses, worms or spyware being loaded onto your machine, depending on the effectiveness of your Antivirus Software
• Can slow up your internet access as people extract files from your machine without your knowledge
• Can effect any data limits you have on your internet access agreement with your ISP

Please note that MSN Messenger, or Windows Messenger also have the ability to transfer files between PCs, and although this is most typically between people that you know, or your children know, it can be another way undesirable software can arrive on your PC and be a chink in your machine's security.

Refer to comments on Downloads above

Norton SystemWorks have an excellent WINDOCTOR tool that fixes up lots of things we users do not even know about. It is a very valuable asset.

For more details refer to the Symantec Product page

The internet Cache is a temporary area on your hard disk that keeps track of images that you have downloaded within a web page so that if you go back to that web page again it can grab those images from your disk drive rather than having to download them again.

This speeds up web browsing.

Having the Cache too large means that your system spends a lot of time managing those directories and files on your disk and can negate the benefit.

I would recommend a cache size of no more than 10-20 megabytes. Feel free to experiment with this setting.

For details on how to change this setting refer to this Microsoft page

A computer constantly creates and deletes files on its Hard Drive. If there is not enough space in one area of the disk it creates parts of the file in another part of the disk and seamlessly/invisibly links all parts of the files together.

As this process continues, the system can spend a lot of time reading and writing many areas of your disk just to handle ONE file.

This makes your disk system very inefficient, noticeable by a lot of disk activity and.or noise for simple activities.

De fragmenting your hard drive reunites all parts of your files together again and makes reading and writing of these files much more efficient.

Refer to this Microsoft Page