Filed under: tech
As the local computer ‘expert’, every day i get a call or visit from someone who’s computer needs fixing. In 2006 they will all be referred to people who make it their business to fix such things. I would love to help everyone, but the ‘fixing’ can take hours and once the ‘fix’ has been applied it’s unlikely that the computer in question will remain working for long. In the past I blamed the users but the complexity of the threats now facing the average internet connected windows pc is astonishing… and it gets more astonishing by the day.
You now need protect yourself against viruses, trojans, spyware, adware and rootkits, to name but a few of the types of threats posed to your computer. In addition, if you don’t want 3rd party companies collecting data about your browsing and shopping habits you need prevent 3rd party cookies and 3rd party ‘persistent identification elements’ in Flash (more info. on these at the end of the post). Even in ‘nice’ browsers like Firefox, 3rd party cookie blocking is not on by default. This means that while you are, for example, surfing Amazon’s site, an advertising company like Double-Click can collect info on your shopping habits. This is a bit like letting a man from Sainsbury’s follow you round Tesco’s so that he can learn about your shopping habits. Most of us wouldn’t agree to such stuff if we were asked.
If you use a windows pc you should be aware of all of this. But how on earth the average user is supposed to get to grips with this kind of stuff is completely beyond me. My current issue of ‘pc pro’ magazine (from which i get great solace from other IT pro’s who spend their lives fixing friends / neighbours / relatives pc’s) recommends that to adequately protect yourself you need to be running:
- A full licensed copy of ZoneAlarm Scurity Suite
- A full licensed copy of Spyware Doctor
- AND Microsoft Antispyware…
This little lot would bring the average 2 year old machine to a crawl and make a dent in your wallet. Obviously you also need to be applying all the latest patches. If you’re not on broadband forget it.
Last year I actually paid for some software and bought ZoneAlarm Scurity Suite. I haven’t looked back and recommend parting with some cash if you don’t already have up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware software installed.
If this all sounds too much - sell your PC and buy a Mac - 3 friends of mine have recently done this on my advice. I feel better already!
## Alert - for techies only!
For the techies amongst you, the following is also essential reading. You probably already read about the sony rootkit scandal… but the full [entry on sysinternals]( ## Flash PIE’s For more info on pie’s, google [Persistent Identification Element](http://www.google.ie/search?q=Persistent+Identification+Element “search for more about pie’s”) If you already disable 3rd party cookies, then I’d recommend changing your Flash settings to disable 3rd party pies…! And do you know how to do that? I didn’t - but it turns out you need to go to the [Flash settings manager web page](http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html) from where you need to navigate to the ‘global storage settings panel’ and untick “allow 3rd party flash content….” box… phew… Now, how’s your gran supposed to know to do that?… **Happy New Year!**
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Jesus. It’s back to the 19th Century for me. I’ve just got this great new Y2K compliant Open Source abacus, and its comes in far nicer colours than my old lap top and it doesn’t need any electricity. When I went to China in 1991 all the big shops, up to big department store level, used abacuses (should that be abacii?) to work out your bill, and seeing how deftly and quickly the checkout people added up on them was amazing. Not so handy for computer driven centralised order taking and stock checking, but it worked great for them. I imagine that 15 years later in a rather different China, most of those abucuses are at the bottom of rather deep landfill sites. Oh well.
Comment by Rob 01.03.06 @ 12:39 pm