Monday 1 December 2008

Protect yourself from Malicious Websites for free



The internet is a place where you can find a plethora of information on topics that you never really knew existed. At the same time, its a place where you can talk to your friends across the globe and see pictures. But, what most people forget is – just like the real world, the internet can sometimes be really bad. It’s full of identity thieves and malware, that can catch you at anytime, and its also full  of malicious websites (not to mention inappropriate websites as well) that can always harm you or your family in some way or the other.

But fear now, there is light at the end of the tunnel. There are 2 great pieces of software out there that everyone can use for FREE to make sure that you never visit or come across such websites.

Option 1: OpenDNS

image OpenDNS is a great way to protect yourself (did I mention its also (kind of) a way to improve your internet connection speed) and maybe even your family from malicious and inappropriate websites with their webcontent filtering system. Instead blocking any kind of malicious website, it will give you the option of what you’d like to block. I must mention here that you will need some tech knowhow to configure your internet connection to use OpenDNS, but their helpful guide makes it easy for everyone to use it.

Option 2: Use McAfee Site Advisor

Site advisor is great for people who often search for things on search engines. Instead of accidently going to a bad/evil/phishing web page, Site Advisor will let you know beforehand so that you can ignore the option from the list of search queries. Even if you accidently stumble upon a website that might infect your computer it’ll still let you know.

Although there are 2 options, I recommend that it is best to use both of them in tandem, because unlike an anti-virus the more protection you have, the more you can prevent malware from infiltrating your computer. Also in the case of phishing attacks, I recommend common sense.

image





Got a question, tip or comment? Send them to beyondteck+question@gmail.com and we'll try to answer it in a blog post!

No comments:

Post a Comment