Securing Your System, Part 3

Are you ready to finish securing your system for free?

Okay, by now, you should have accomplished full virus scans and three spyware sweeps, as well as having turned on Windows automatic updates. If you haven't gotten service pack 2 installed yet, it may take a while. It's about 80 meg in size. If you're on dialup, you may want to start the download at bedtime.

The final step in securing your system for free is installing Firefox. Run the setup program you downloaded earlier. Once Firefox is installed, go to https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/plugins/ and install all of the plugins. You'll probably need all seven.

After the plugins are in place, got to https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/recommended/ and check out some of the really cool addons you can customize Firefox with. Here are my recommendations:

Adblock Plus: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1865/

ForecastFox: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/398/

IETab: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1419/

There are hundreds more you can experiment with. But these three are essential, IMHO.

With IETab, if a page loads that needs ActiveX (read: most microsoft.com pages), you can easily tell it to load the page in an Internet Explorer tab right within Firefox! Many sites with wmv movie files won't load right in Firefox, either. You can tell IETab to open them as well.

Here's the bottom line: 98% of worms, hostile scripts, and other web page attacks are designed to go after Internet Explorer. By using Firefox, you are automatically 98% safer on the web.

So there you have it. A safe, secure system. It should stay that way, too, as long as your programs are allowed to update themselves. And all it cost you was some of your time.

Happy safe surfing!

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