How to protect your computer from viruses, worms, Trojan horses?

      It has become every day routine now. I receive email from a friend, classical spam message inviting me to visit some website or signup for specific contest or award competition. Many of my friends, not IT experts, do not even know their profiles have been hacked and misused. Hackers break into their emails, use them to send multiple emails with inappropriate or typical spam content. I decided to write this article for all those people who do not know how to protect themselves online.

      Before I start, you should know that Windows Operating Systems have many lapses and omissions by default. In this way, hackers use cracks in your system to break in and infect your device. We are all aware that there are many online services (online shopping, e-banking, forum and blog registration etc) which require registration process to be done in order to protect themselves and your privacy and info online. This is very sensitive area for any user since you need to enter personal info, credit card number or some detail about your life and work. Also, someone could send spam messages through your email without worries for himself and that could be a legal issue. Therefore, do not give personal info to third parties, keep details about your accounts (usernames and passwords) only for yourself. Also, take care about sites you are visiting. That is a basic rule of online security!

      Using of anti-virus software is necessity. If you are low on cash, use some of free anti-virus software such as AVG, Avast or Microsoft Essentials. You need to update software every now and then and your Windows need to be legal, also. Before you download anything from the web, make sure that your software scan document you downloaded. You should clean your device from spyware and key logger programs using SpyBoot or SUPER AntiSpyware software. SpyBoot is practical, simple software that will clean unnecessary cookies and temp files. After you install SpyBoot, it will scan all new files and programs that will be integrated in your system, so you can always check what's going on with your device.

      If your email's already been hacked, try changing your password on email account. Many users enter simple terms like "new123" or "123456" for passwords so they make hacker's task easy. I suggest that you use following technique when choosing your password. Select a sentence, for example "Today is the first day of the rest of my life". Now use first letter of every word and write down a new password "titfdotroml". In this way, you will always remember sentence you used for your password and you will have no issues using it as very strong and unbreakable. Also, do not use same password for all logins and registrations you need, but use different passwords for your accounts.

      If you are still having issues with your computer after you used anti-virus and cleaner, I suggest that you select important data from your device, move it to another partition or external device (backup) and run reinstall of your OS. You should also consider using Linux OS, because it is best known for its stability and  safety. Versions like Ubuntu are applied in many homes. Requirements are smaller, your device will work faster, you have all options like Windows user and you have automatically integrated OpenOffice system that have similar options to Microsoft Office. With Ubuntu OS you will outdo Windows, and you will have stabile OS without any worries for your security.