Basic Computer Security/Web Security/Online Security Good Practices

Most people surf the internet for several uses, like getting information about a topic, checking email, shopping, reading, or even selling goods. The internet has made all of these activities easier and faster to achieve with less time and effort. Still, this convenience does not come without a price.

Internet security is a concern for everyone who uses the internet. How can you be sure that your identity, passwords, personal information, shopping information and credit card numbers, etc are all protected and that they are not available for hackers and malicious users. These are some tips that can helps with this:

NEVER give your username and password for anyone.
MAKE sure you read the privacy policy of the websites that you visit before giving any personal information.
If you are shopping online, NEVER shop from an untrusted website. If you have doubt about the website check the privacy policy of that website and any information about their method of protecting that data, if available. If you are still in doubt, then do not shop from that website and keep searching to a more trusted websites.
Don't provide you email username and password for any websites that will enable the website to logon to your account automatically. This is a big risk that personal information through emails can be accessed.

There are also some preventive measures that you can take to prevent invasion of keyloggers (programs that record what you typed and send them off through the internet without the user noticing) and trojans onto your computer. These include: 1) Up to date antivirus programme (there are some free ones around that will do a good job, I recommend: AntiVir Guard) 2) Fire wall (yet, another free and reliable one: ZoneAlarm) 3) Anti-adware/spyware: e.g.Ad-Aware and Spybot

Having these programmes will provide you a security of your computer. Though, behaviour practises as discussed in the early part are also essential to provide good online security.