The article below was written to help you protect your computer and keep it fast and easy to use. If you need any further advice please do not hesitate to call or email and arrange an appointment either at your premises or in our shop. As far as I am aware we are one of the few Computer companies that will try and clean your computer whilst retaining your data, rather than just saying "sorry the only thing to do is wipe your drive and reinstall Windows, youve lost your data" ...Come to us first!

HOW TO KEEP YOUR COMPUTER CLEAN AND SECURE

Most people at some time or other will have had a virus or trojan infection on their computer. These problems are at the very least annoying, or at worst dangerous and costly in these days of identity theft. There is no foolproof method of keeping your PC clean, however if you follow a few simple rules and have the right software, then you can stay safe 99.9% of the time. I follow these rules religiously as I handle other peoples data, and have had no problems for many years now on my main PCs.

Make sure that you access the internet through a router before you do anything. This is in effect a hardware firewall between you and the internet, and no nasty virus can even see your computer from the internet let alone infect you. However you can still invite them in or give permission unwittingly, so read carefully........

1. The first rule is don`t let your kids use your computer! I know its impossible if you only have one PC and a msn crazed 13 year old, but please remember that new or used PCs are so cheap now. SEE MY USED PC PAGES. Give them a PC and if they infect it, just reload with basic software in less than an hour. This is a lot less hassle once every couple of months than having thousands of pounds siphoned out of your bank account! If you have to share then try and give them a limited account so they cant change settings or install programs. If they need an admin account then make them on pain of death follow the next rules.

 2. Never use any spyware or virus cleaner program that youve never heard of or hasnt been approved by at least two (no make that three) IT experts. Just clicking on a couple of Google ads about spyware (seemingly innocent but can be sooooo dangerous) could infect your PC terminally. The names of nasty ones are so similar to good ones that confusion reigns. These are the main source of problems these days, a PC with two or three of these rogue apps (generic term is smitfraud) will cost you money, stop you browsing the internet, change your desktop background, route all your webpages to search sites, or even blue screen you.

3. If you get unsolicited popups, never ever click OK, in fact never click "close" or "deny " or "no", always close with X in top right hand corner of window. If it doesnt have an X, then leave it and restart the machine. If the popups are similar each time, or spyware/virus related run the recommended cleanup programs immediately.

 4. Use an antivirus program that is small, easy to understand and FREE! There are quite a few good ones around including Antivir personal, AVG free, Avast, Clamwin, Bitdefender. Peculiar as it seems the virus threat has died away over the last few years. (mainly I think due to the use of routers using NAT giving in effect a permanent hardware firewall. But this has been overshadowed by the rise of spyware and Trojans. see number 5) Large unwieldy security suites may be enticing, promising complete peace of mind (at a £29.99 price point) with no worries, but they carry major baggage in terms of CPU usage and when they go wrong, boy do they go wrong! Incidentally, my favourite antivirus app is Antivir, just ignore the popup asking you to buy it, and you have a wonderful lightweight but powerful program.

5. "Spyware and Trojans need to be stopped". Repeat that every day a hundred times and it still wont be enough. Be paranoid! If you have the slightest sign of any problem run your spyware detector. There is only one program I use: SPYBOT. It is in my opinion by far and away the best spyware program out there. Ok so it doesnt do automatic scans, but if it did would you feel as safe as when you see that screen that says "No immediate threats". I want to know that my computer is clean so I run the scan when Im worried, or once every week as I tell my clients to. Dont get complacent be proactive! If you want one that does run an automatic scan, I can only recommend Spyware Doctor, but you do have to pay for it. 

6. Be careful about what downloads you or other users of your PC do. If you want programs, only go to reputable sites (download.com, filehippo.com, softpedia.com etc.) If you use file sharing programs, be extra careful. VIRUSES ARE PLANTED ON THESE SITES INTENTIONALLY. did you get that? Whatever you download, scan for viruses before you run it. If you download a zipped or rar file be extra vigilent and make sure your scanning programs are up to date before you unzip. If you still go to dodgy sites (you know what I mean gentlemen) never click any popups, never download activeX plug ins, and alkways run your scans afterwards to be safe.

7. Have a routine that you stick to. Mine is simple, it only consists of three things once a week:

 a) Make sure that my antivirus has done a full scan at least once that week.

b) Run CCleaner first. This is the best little program of its kind, it does all that windows cleanup can do and a lot more. It also has a foolproof little registry cleaner built in.

c) Update and run Spybot complete with the immunisation feature. You cannot and should not rely on an all-in-one solution that you install and forget. They cost a lot of money and they will still let you down!

The views and opinions stated above are mine, and have been built up through the experience over many years of cleaning up thousands of computers. You can choose to follow them or not, its up to you. But please understand I hold no responsibility for what happens on your computers. If you have any comments please email me, I would be very interested in your point of view.

 Michael Cook Owner of SUPERGEEK