Computer Technology TipTotal Security for Your PC In February's 2009 issue I discussed a new free anti-malware program called Malwarebytes which is available from www.malwarebytes.org. I also mentioned Avast, the anti-virus program which is also free and available at www.avast.com. These two programs working together will help protect you from infections in cyberspace. Avast can block incoming trojans, worms, viruses, and protect you while surfing on the Web. Should something get by Avast Malwarebytes can scan and remove the infection. There's an additional free program I will also recommend. It's called SiteAdvisor. It's from McAfee and it's the only program from that company I can recommend. The program is unique in that it displays a green, yellow, or red toolbar that resides on top of Internet Explorer's buttons at every site you visit. Green means it is a safe site with no malware detected. Yellow is basically safe but you may experience some pop-up ads or other nuisances. Red means the site is unsafe and is likely to have links on it that can lead to malware or other forms of unwanted intrusions. Never do any business with a site that is displayed in red. Actually the red category has two levels. The first I just described. The second level kicks in if the site itself can drop malware on your computer. At this second level SiteAdvisor will actually block you from connecting to that site. A gray color on the SiteAdvisor toolbar means that SiteAdvisor has not yet scanned the Web site. Be careful! To get a better picture of how you get infected is a matter of following the trends. Most of the malware these days comes from Web sites. That is why the programs I have recommended place extra emphasis on this area. Email infections are at an all time low. Rarely do you get an infected attachment. However that doesn't mean you can lower your guard. Don't click on anything inside of an email if you don't know who sent it. Even if you do I would still be careful. SiteAdvisor however can help you decide if a clickable link within the email leads to a safe site. Avast also protects you from incoming infected email. To complete the total security setup for your computer I recommend that you uninstall your Norton, McAfee, and etc. anti-virus programs and install the above programs. Here's why. The Norton and McAfee programs don't offer any better protection than the programs I have already mentioned. I know of several residents that can attest to that. They also extract a greater toll on system performance than the programs I recommend. They often have programmatic issues that deal with pop-up errors and other system instabilities. Along with your regular system maintenance and installing better performing security software, you will have a faster running computer. Another way to look at this is that the Norton and McAfee programs are internally overly complex and bloated and that leads to the issues I've mentioned. To find out more about how to download and install Avast, Malwarebytes, and SiteAdvisor, come to our PC Club meeting. We also discuss Comcast questions too. Our meetings are held on the second Tuesday of every month at 7:00 PM upstairs in Winfield Hall. Remember to check the Hershey's Mill website at www.hersheysmill.org and click on Tech Tips for past Technology Tips articles. Don Trauger
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