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I’m always on the lookout to help me secure my pc and those of my family. Below is a list of top 10 security measures I’m using and recommend:

1. Always try and use a hardware firewall. For home users, this
   would normally be an ADSL firewall/router. These offer a lot better
   protection than Usb ADSL modems.
2. Secure your Wireless connections. Follow the manual or ask a friend or your child but do not let unsecured wireless connections exist for a long time.
3. Avast - I’ve been using this Antivirus program for quite a while now. It caught a few nasties over the years. Easy to install, regular updates and not too much strain on the system
4. ZoneAlarm - Now owned by CheckPoint. The personal firewall is easy to instal and use. Does not have too much annoying messages. A personal firewall is an essential tool to have on your pc. Any firewall is better than nothing. Windows firewall is ok but doesn’t give you too much information. It’s fine for a casual user however.
5. Firefox NoScript - The plugin allows you to selectively select which sites are allowed to run Javascript. It’s a pain when you’re continually browsing new websites, but offers good protection.
6. Stay up-to-date - Microsoft offers regular updates that also fix security issues. If you stay up to date with your Windows Update it will offer better protection.
7. Educate yourself and your family. Safe internet use is also how to recognise a scam, phishing, virus, spyware, adware and other nasties.
8. Use safe passwords, if you can’t remember them you could consider using Roboform, Password Safe or KeePass. I personally use KeePass a lot. If you absolutely have to remember them without software then use something that helps you to remember like a phrase at the bottom of your watch or a model number on your glasses. An acronym could also help (as in: I Like High School Musical 3 becomes: ILHSM3)
9. Run anti-spyware programs such as Ad-Aware, Spy Sweeper, Spyware Blaster or Microsoft Defender. Don’t get programs pretending to be anti-spyware, get them from a reputable source. Either direct from the manufacturer or from a reputable download site like Tucows.com
10. Make backups. Maybe this should be #1! If it can go wrong it will someday. Better to be prepared. It’s a pain and can will cost you money but get an external harddisk and get backing up. What and how to back up is not in the scope of this article.

Bonus tip: Get a spam filter on your email client.

Technorati Tags: Internet, security, Software

Larry Page met Sergey Brin in the summer of 1995. They started their search engine named BackRub in 1996. On the 15th September 1997 they registered google.com. On the 4th September 1998 they file as a US corporation. The rest is history, as they say. But I don’t think the story is over yet. It’s an interesting read nonetheless. See more on this entertaining website:

http://www.google.co.uk/tenthbirthday

Up to the googol indexed page Google. Cheers!

And the next bit already visible with the introduction of the Android platform mobiles. That T-Mobile should come out with a first is not really a wonder since a founder of the original company that Google bought (Android Inc.) was once VP of T-Mobile.

T-Mobile

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7630888.stm

see more on Google’s pages:

http://code.google.com/android/

and Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Android

Is this the next generation iPhone? The companies are locked into this battle and, for a change, are about equal in size:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/15/apple.apple

Interesting times.

Gerben

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

And an official blog entry here:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

Even though release date is announced as 2nd of September, there is nothing on the official site as yet:

http://www.google.com/chrome

I will be checking back regularly and give it a go. I’m not ready to abandon Firefox yet, but I guess the Mozilla foundation will be slightly more worried. Probably more than Microsoft with IE.

Technorati Tags: browser, google, Internet, Software

As a reader of the excellent IT News site I receive daily updates. The following article caught my eye:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/22/accessing_restricted_sites

The writer, Dan Goodin, pointed out that you can use cached pages to access content that otherwise would have been password protected. Website creators can allow the search bots access to index their sites and get them higher in the search engines listings.

The downside of this is of course that Google as a side effect also caches the page and makes it available. See following link for more information.

http://www.google.com/help/operators.html

Using the cache: operator is gives the same results as using the cached link in the normal search results pages. To take this one step further you would have to act as a Google bot yourself. You can easily do this with Firefox if you install the User Agent Switcher plugin:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

After the installation is finished and Firefox restarted, go to the plugins options page and add another User Agent.

The Description is: ‘Googlebot 2.1 (New version)’

and the User Agent is: ‘Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)’

(do not include the single quotes please)

That’s it. Done. You can test it by selecting the User Agent in Firefox’s Tools->User Agent Switcher menu. Try it by browsing to the article’s sample website:

http://forums.inkdropstyles.com/index.php?showtopic=4227

Note: not all websites that have protected content will work using this method.

Technorati Tags: google, Internet, Software