Ways to Keep Your Home Computer Safe from Malware, Spyware, and Other Harmful Software

Nowadays, anti-virus software has gotten smarter for the reason that malwares and spywares have gotten trickier and sneakier as well. Every day, thousands of personal computers and mobile devices experience malware attacks. As a computer user, it is important for us to have the knowledge to safeguard ourselves from the harmful attacks from the World Wide Web to avoid system or hardware failure, loss of important data, and other disastrous results.

There are a couple of ways to keep our home computers as malware-free or spyware-proof as possible.

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• Install a good antivirus software There are a lot of good antivirus software that you can choose from. There’s Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, Norton, AVG, Avast, and Kaspersky to name a few. It helps to research the software first by going through online forums and reviews to make a better choice on which product is best for you. Customer feedback is always a good source of information when scouting for the best software to avail. As the saying goes, the customer is always right.

• Keep the computer's system up to date Software updates for Microsoft and Apple computers are recommended whenever there are new updates released. These software updates are made available to resolve any security problems, to have new software features, to have updated drivers for the hardware components, and to fix any system bugs and issues. But not all software updates are needed to be installed, so it’s also important to check the definition and purpose of each update first.

• Avoid opening unreliable sources that contain downloadable applications, cracked software, and spam e-mail attachments. If something sent or offered to you seems suspicious or too good to be true, it is better not to open or download it, to be on the safe side.

• Optimize or clean up the computer regularly Running virus scans, disk clean up, and tune up tools can keep your personal computer in shape. If you are not computer savvy, you can choose from a vast list of tune up tools whether it’s free or not. To test if a tune up tool is effective and reliable, you can take advantage of the trial version first.

• Create users with limited rights on the computer or enable Parental Control If the computer is being used by more than one family member, the administrator should create user rights and apply parental controls. Parental Control is built-in both in Windows and Mac operating systems. Through this, you can create restrictions on which programs and websites are accessible at specific days and time by your children. As a parent, it is our responsibility to protect the kids from the Internet the best way we can. Parental Control is also included in most antivirus software, in which web filters can be enabled and the activity or usage of the child online can be monitored.

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Article Written By: Pia Acosta - Tech Support Engineer at Supportrix