Simple steps to keep Spywares, Adwares and Viruses Away!

Unable to get rid of spyware and Adware from your system? Do you clean everything you can and still find those annoying things back in the system? Not anymore! Let’s look at some tools that will make your life easier and hopefully you shall not see any of those again.

The tools, tips and tricks are solely my recommendations and since I have not been hit by any spyware, Adware or Viruses in last two years, I hope following my tips and recommendations will give you some peace of mind for a very long time.

Prevent unauthorized access to your system

Most of us are on either a Cable/DSL or other mediums of Internet connections that are prone to make your system visible to peer system on the same network. In this way, your system is virtually exposed to all other infected systems on the network as well. Without a powerful firewall, your system is subject to an easy penetration and without patches it’s more likely that your system’s security will be compromised without a doubt. I personally use ZoneAlarm for my system to meet my firewall related requirements. The product is also available as a free edition and you can grant or deny access to applications as and when they prompt for access to Internet. With one click, you can engage an Internet lock which will immediately block access to Internet for all the applications on your system.

ZoneAlarm is available as a free download @ http://www.zonelabs.com

Lock your Internet browser

Here is what you can do at a minimal to prevent those nasty scripts from automatically getting downloaded and install in your system.

Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools and then select Options [Internet Explorer->Tools->Options]. Click on Security tab, click on Internet [under web content zone] then click on ‘Custom Level‘. Now ensure that your settings matches as per the below mentioned:-

Automatic prompting for ActiveX controls - Set to -> Disable [This will prevent automatic prompts to install ActiveX controls]
Download signed ActiveX controls - Set to -> Prompt [Even if an ActiveX control is signed, you still get to see the prompt]
Download unsigned ActiveX controls - Set to -> Prompt [In case of an unsigned ActiveX control, you are prompted for an action]
Initialize and run script ActiveX controls not marked as safe - Set to -> Prompt
Java Permissions - Set to -> High Safety

Another common problem many face is with their browser’s home page getting hijacked by a script or an adware page. No matter whichever website you want to open, the browser will go back to a different page :(. To fix such issues, there is a tool called HijackThis which will not only detect potential scripts that could have caused such a browser hijack but also try to fix it. [Tool is available for free download] Even if your computer is not infected at this moment, downloading this small tool and keeping it in some folder, so that it’s available when it’s needed, is recommended.

Other than this tool, there are plenty of free and good anti-spyware tools available in the market. A Google search should show you many of them. Most known tools and the ones I recommend are: Ad-Aware SE Personal, Spybot - Search & Destroy. [Both have automatic update feature built-in].

Regular updates to your Anti-Virus software

You must regularly update the virus definition files of your Anti-Virus software. Irrespective of whichever software you use, regular updates will help in detecting and cleaning new and known viruses before they do any damage to your system. Most of such softwares come with pre-configured automatic update feature built-in, so let it do it’s job and keep your system free of viruses.

Happy Browsing!