So where did all the Virus's go? during the 90's and early 00's its all we ever heard about when using the internet! those of you that were still on dial up internet this really wasn't an issue as lets face it 56K it not really internet at all! more something that should of been rolled out gloabally for free as its that bad.

So we had the birth of Broadband, 10X the speed of dial up at the time which also brought 10X the threat of infections on your PC. Everything was a threat, peer to peer networks were full of them. Who would want to steal from the internet if you were gonna get a virus? well that didn't stop any one. So whats my point? Well, virus's were rampant but no one could see the gain! to what end were these virus's being prduced other than to upset Windows users all over the world. Well there wasn't any real gain at all.

How silly someone must of thought! as with the birth of chip and pin, online banking being able to now by products from any country in the world with your debit or credit card. How silly is it that i am not making money of these people! So came the birth of 'Malware' or malicious software, this was a new breed of infection instead of causing you to loose data or maybe have a little hardware failure 'Malware' is after YOU! your money and identity! this ocmes in many forms and i have seen it evolved of the last 5 years fast to become very clever manipulative pieces of software.

So how do you stop it? there is stopping really, only making sure you clean up often and well! to sum up all protection Anti virus program, malware cleaners they all essentailly react to an infection and dont manage to stop it. we should all see this kind of protection as a reactive measure not a preventative measure. I personally have seen root kit vuris's running on a laptop with a fully paid for version McAfee on it, i have seen rouge Anti virus products beat Nortons world famous program.

This leaves Windows users with little options to remain safe.

First choice stop using Windows! well for 99% of you out there this is not an option.  

What about moving to a 64BIT version of Windows? 64bit what? Exactly!

Pay for ever more protection?

Or lastly just stop using the internet.

All of the above a really not that helpful! apart from the 64BIT suggestion but thats for another rant!

Heres what you do, use one of the many FREE malware scanners out there on a weekly basis. Ensure you have an upto date Anti Virus program and that you use a Firewall. Dont click on anything shinny that pops up flashing weahter its going to make you rich or thin or whatever! Set up limited user accounts for your children, whatch there internet use, limit their internet use, pre block websites that may cause harm. If you PC or laptop dose something eractic give it a scan! i am sure you will be happy to catch that bug early! if you internet suddently becomes slow give it a scan, a smart or quick scan may only be what you need to clean what ever is taking up your bandwidth.

RANT OVER

Now for the plug, if you want any further information about this subject, would like someone to help set up a limited account for a child or to implement parental controls on a childs user account. If you would like advice on what security you need, whats hot and what not please just give PCs Made Simple a call i am here ot help. 01202 830121