Online security strategy

My PC is infected twice with virus within this week, . Nowadays, virus, trojans, worms, spyware, malware, keylogger are so common that according to AVG statistics, 1 among 1000 PC are infected unknowingly with any of the above; and 1 among 10 websites contains malicious agent or drive-by downloads.

Online security has become a really big issue. Few steps to be taken as to engage into warfare against virus:

1. Update your operating system
Keep your system safe & secure with Windows update. Microsoft issues updates for plugging security holes in Windows and its components such as Internet Explorer(IE) on a regular basis. This is mostly important, as it really fixes a lot of security weakness in the O/S. However, when updating windows, you can just install the fixes marked "Critical Updates" as other available updates are marked "optional" and are not related to online security.

2. Keep your browser secure or change it
A common way for spyware to install itself is through Microsoft Internet Explorer(IE). There are severals way of immunize the browser. Firstly some anti-spyware like Spybot:S&D and Spyware doctor can add known bad sites to your restricted sites, blocking out them. Like the latest AVG v8, the free version already provides link scanner where all the search links are scanned parrallelly when your search something in search engine like Google or yahoo. The paid version even provides more security to have active web shield.
If you dun like the idea of installing lots of stuff in your computer, you can also try this IE-SPYAD. It adds lots and lots of known bad sites into your internet explorer restricted sites. And of course, remember to keep updating it.
The third method is to change your browser to firefox, opera, safari or even latest chrome! they are less popular and thus less prone to all those spywares.

3. Anti-virus and antispyware
Nowadays these two types of softare are usually bundled together. Eg. AVG v8, Sunbelt VIPRE v2 etc. For anti-virus, according to CHIPS 2007, the anti-virus scanner which can discover most viruses is Kapersky; however it is also the anti-virus with most false alarms. If you want free anti-virus, try out these: Avast anti-virus, AVG v8, and Avira Antivir. These three are recommend by Cnet download.com.
Be sure to check out this also: Sunbelt VIPRE v3. personally recommend it , although it is not free but it is the most resourse-free antivirus software. You can visit its website to know more.

For anti-spyware, the top three recommended are Sunbelt Counterspy, Spybot:S&D, and Webroot SpySweeper. They are the most award-winning among all those anti-spywares in market. They are not free, but trust me, they are far more better than the freeware such as ad-aware. As a matter of fact, according to some online comparison tests, ad-aware can discover only the half of that of Counterspy.

4. Firewalls
A 'firewall' is critical to online security for a computer attached to 'always-on', broadband internet connections and highly recommmended even for dial-up connections.
If you don't have a firewall installed go to grc.com and run the ShieldsUp! security leak test. Choose amongst various tests such as 'Common Ports' to check the vunerabilityof your machine to attack. The results may shock you.
Install a firewall such as ZoneAlarm (free for non-business use only) and test again at the GRC site with ShieldsUp!. You should see a dramatic improvement in test results and your online security.

Hope all these can really help you guys!