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FAQ

What's the difference between viruses, spyware, and firewalls?

Viruses are little computer programs specifically written by hackers to either A) wreck your system, B) send out valuable data (such as your credit card numbers), or C) both. Like the human version, they are quite contagious and their goal is to replicate. They used to be commonly caught by floppy disks, but now it is usually via email and sometimes malicious websites. Other forms of viruses are called Trojans and Worms--while not technically "viruses" in the strict sense of the word, they might as well be: they're all bad for your computer. Viruses, trojans and worms have gotten extremely sneaky in recent years. They may show up in an email that really looks like it's from your friend (who didn't send it, his or her infected computer did so automatically), or as a funny joke with the urging to open a file or click on something. Sometimes they come in hoax emails. It's wise to be cautious, but in additon to that you ought to have a program like Norton Antivirus to catch things automatically as they try to come in. The new version of Norton Antivirus even scans outgoing email for infections, so you don't infect other machines should your computer try to send out something bad.

Spyware is, according to the Webopedia, "Any software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes. Spyware is similar to a Trojan horse in that users unwittingly install the product when they install something else. A common way to become a victim of spyware is to download certain peer-to-peer file swapping products that are available today. Once installed, the spyware monitors user activity on the Internet and transmits that information in the background to someone else. Spyware can also gather information about e-mail addresses and even passwords and credit card numbers. Aside from the questions of ethics and privacy, spyware steals from the user by using the computer's memory resources and also by eating bandwidth as it sends information back to the spyware's home base via the user's Internet connection. Because spyware is using memory and system resources, the applications running in the background can lead to system crashes or general system instability." More details here.

Still confused? Here's an article explaining the difference between viruses and spyware in detail.

Firewalls are designed to prevent hackers from getting into your computer. If you have a broadband connection, a firewall is an abolute must. It can be a little tricky to configure them at times, but it's better to have one than not. (I recommend ZoneAlarm). Want to check your security right now? Go test your system over at GRC.com. Have a firewall already? Take the firewall leak test.

How can I prevent spyware from getting on my system?

Here's some basic tips on spyware prevention. Suggestion #2 recommends patching IE; I recommend not using it at all. No matter how much work you put into it, it's a magnet for problems (you can probably guess that I am not a big Microsoft fan at this point!). As a Wired article put it, "Ever since Internet Explorer toppled Netscape in 1998, browser innovation has been more or less limited to pop-up ads, spyware, and viruses. Over the past six years, IE has become a third world bus depot, the gathering point for a crush of hawkers, con artists, and pickpockets." The best solution is to use an non-IE browser like Firefox, at a minimum. Even better, you should additionally install a good firewall like ZoneAlarm, a good antivirus program like AVG Antivirus (free) or Norton Antivirus, and AVG Antispyware to catch any spyware/malware baddies.

Research before you download any P2P software. Lastly, just don't click on popups or strange windows asking to install things. Ever.

If you're pretty sure you've already got spyware on your system, I recommend the free Ad-Aware and AVG Antispyware to remedy the situation.

As with spyware, really the best treatment is prevention. Once you're getting a lot of spam, sometimes the only choice you're left with is changing your email address--and being very protective of it from that point forward. I recomend Eudora (my favorite) or Thunderbird (if you're used to Outlook) for email, as they have spam filters that will help you as well. If you really want to get an education about spam prevention, you can buy a copy of "Fighting Spam for Dummies" from me for $10...I have several copies in stock and it has lots of good tips.

You sure can. Worse, AIM itself is fairly hackable. To keep your computer secure, I recommend using Trillian or Pidgin for chat instead of AIM. They are much better organized, have nicer features, and both connect to your buddy list the same way AIM does. Best of all, they can connect to several different chat clients at once--that means you can fire up Trillian and talk to your AIM, MSN, Yahoo! and IRC buddies all in one program.

Yes. First and foremost I recommend getting the best firewall on the market, ZoneAlarm. There is a free version which works very well (this is what I am running right now, in fact). Secondly, there are some free security-enhancing utilities everyone should install: Shoot the Messenger, DCOMbobulator, and UnPNP. They fix some hidden (and big) security weaknesses in Windows.

My computer is kind of old, but it's set up the way I like. What's wrong with Windows 98 (or Windows ME?)

Nothing, really. However: it is no longer supported by anyone, including Microsoft itself. Many if not most new programs are no longer written for 98 or are painfully slow/unstable on it. So what? Well, if you run into problems, you are very limited in ways to fix them. Many of the programs designed to kill spyware and viruses require a newer operating system. I understand not wanting to mess with "what's working." I also understand you may not be interested in anything fancy. But you'll probably find that if you give XP a try, it's actually more user-friendly than what you're used to (you can even tell it to mimic the look of earlier Windows versions). It's also a lot less crash-prone.

Yes; I have had one client ensnared by this already. Basically this is where somebody sends you an email or a popup claiming to be an established and legitimate enterprise (AOL, Microsoft, etc.) in an attempt to scam you into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. Phishers mimic the look of the legit guys very well, so be very suspicious if AOL or PayPal is suddenly asking you for your password for no apparent reason. Go to your account first and see if anything is amiss--and do NOT give out your password or account information. Here's an example of what a "phishing" email looks like, and here's more information about phishing.

It would really be better for your investment to be plugged into a good surge-protecting power strip. These only cost $20 - $40 (though you can get more powerful ones for more). What they do . Here's an environmentally friendly power strip that can actually save you money.

Whether or not your stuff is retrievable depends on how it crashed. If it was just a minor crash, it's probably possible to get to it and save it. If it was a system-wide heart attack, however, you might be out of luck, depending on what's wrong. If you're lucky, the heart attack was caused by something other than the hard drive, which has all your precious stuff on it. Why does this happen? Several reasons are possible: heat, viruses, hardware failure, etc. Unfortunately, I do not do data retrieval, I leave that to the experts. Your data is precious and they are better equipped to get it back. As with other computing disasters, this is another case of prevention being your best bet: you may want to invest in a external hard drive to back up your data, or have a second internal hard drive installed for that purpose (this is what I have on my home computer).

A driver is a little bit of software used to control a hardware component or peripheral device of a computer, like a modem, disk drive or printer. If you do not have the right driver for a specific hardware item (i.e. your modem), that device may not function properly or at all.