What do I need for protection?

This simple question is actually quite complex. Many think that "I have ABC Internet Security Suite, I'm protected". This is very dangerous thinking. No single suite of security applications comes anywhere near being a total solution. In fact, I steer my customers away from them, as no company has the resources to be up to date and experts in all areas. Large companies are swallowing up previously good applications and over engineering them. Their security suites are very pretty but they are processor and memory hogs.

For basic, excellent protection, the free applications are a great solution, and what I recommend. Unfortunately, there are also free "rogue" applications, which give false indications of your security status. You can get some guidance through Spyware Warrior, one of the best resources for comparisons and listings of rogue applications. Their blog site is also very timely and informative.

To set up a good, basic security profile, you will need:

a good software firewall

a good real-time and scanning anti-virus program

a minimum of two spyware scanning programs

a real-time spyware monitoring program

As new threats are written and released every day, these programs all need to be kept up to date with definitions from their respective publishers' web sites. How often you should update depends on how much you use the Internet and how widely you travel there. If you browse the internet daily, I would check for updates and scan for problems daily. A couple of times per week, update and scan at least once per week. Fortunately, most of these tasks can be automated to some degree.

Stay tuned as I cover these topics and make recommendations, so you can check your defenses and stay safe and in control of your computer and your online experience.