Your Computer: What You Don't Know Could Hurt You

You can read reviews of various top rated anti-malware programs.

You can get free anti-malware (anti-virus/anti-spyware) software here from AVG. Norton 360 is a highly rated paid program that comes in different versions with different price tags. Norton Antivirus Plus is a bit less expensive and still receives an excellent rating.

You should run only one anti-malware program in real-time active mode on your computer. However, you can have multiple programs on your computer that run passively, i.e. you have to ask the program to scan your computer. Two examples of a passive anti-malware program are Super Anti-Spyware and Eset Free Online Scanner .

If your computer becomes infected with a virus, you may be unable to boot to Windows. If you have a rescue CD available, it may remove the virus and allow you to boot to Windows. Several companies will create free Rescue CDs. You will need to burn the Rescue CD to a CD. This free software can do that for you.

There are 4 companies that perform ratings on anti-malware programs. The companies make their ratings available to the public. You can see the ratings from AV Comparatives, AV-Test, Simon Edwards Labs and Virus Bulletin. PC Magazine also rates free anti-malware programs, although their tests are very different from the four above.

Here are directions for running System Restore.

Kaspersky Total Security may or may not have ties to the Russian government. The FCC doesn't comment on Kaspersky software, but does believe that the Kaspersky company "poses a threat to the United States."

You already have a one-way firewall on your computer. You can go to this website, where you can obtain a free firewall called Zone Alarm that is even better than the one that comes with Windows because it is a 2 way firewall. You can also read a review of Zone Alarm.

Choice Mail offers anti-spam software. Spamfighter offers a similar anti-spam program that is free.

Phishing emails can be extremely dangerous. You can take an 8 question quiz that shows you sample emails. See if you can determine which are phishing emails and which are legitimate.

The "bad guys" who try to break into your computer can use programs sold on the internet that crack passwords. Using a lengthy password makes it much more difficult for criminals to crack your password. You can learn how long it would take a criminal to crack your password. Recently a computer was built that can use brute-force to try 350 billion passwords/second.

This article explains why you should use a password manager.

You can read this review of 6 password managers or this review of 20 password managers or this review of 10 free password managers.

Here's a 13 minute video demonstration of how to use LastPass. LastPass uses a sophisticated methods to keep your data safe. You can read about their technology here and here.

Here's an excellent article that offers tips for good security on all electronic devices.

Most anti-malware companies sell 3 to 4 different versions of their software. For example, Symantec sells Norton Antivirus Plus, Norton 360 Deluxe and Norton 360 Premium.

Android phones and tablets are also vulnerable to malware. PC Magazine rated antimalware software to deal with this problem.

Security Class

The Equifax break-in was a particularly egregious security breach because 145,500,000 Social Security numbers were stolen as well as a lot of additional information. You can learn whether your information was stolen in this breach. Additional information is available here.

This web site and this one allow you to see if your email address and password were among the 11 billion+ that have been stolen in the past few years. There is a 3rd site that provides similar information, but in some cases, it specifies what data was stolen. The New York Times offers this web site that allows you to see whether your credit cards numbers have been exposed to hackers.

You can freeze and unfreeze your credit file at each of the three major credit agencies (Experian, Transunion, and Equifax) for free. Directions are available for freezing your account at the 3 credit agencies. Additional information on this subject is available here. Here's some information about unfreezing your account at the 3 credit agencies.

You can obtain a free credit report once per year from each of the 3 credit agencies.

Here's an excellent article about maintaining good security on your computer.

This site allows you visit any web site and receive a report on what tracking software is on the site

Information About You that is Collected by Large Corporations

The New York Times ran an article by a writer who was shocked to see how much information Facebook and Google had collected about her. Tips for deciphering the information they know about you are included in the article. The NYT article mentions Google Takeout, which allows you to download all your information in a single file. You can also visit the MyAccount Google site, which allows you to see information they know about you, and delete some but not all of it. You can learn more about how to use the MyAccount site at this site or this one.

This article gives you a sense of large amount of information Facebook collects about you, even if you never or rarely go on their site. You can download what Facebook knows about you. Additional information about this is available here. This article offers a number of ways you can reduce the amount of information Facebook knows about you or displays about you. In addition to the information that FB collects about you while you are at their site, 3rd party web sites send FB large amounts of information the 3rd party site collects about you while you are at their site. The 3rd party information sent to FB is described in this Washington Post article. The article also explains how you can turn off this process, and how you can see all the information that is collected.

Microsoft allows you to see the data they know about you, as well as delete/edit some of it. You may have multiple accounts with Microsoft, e.g. Hotmail, Outlook, OneDrive, OneNote, Windows 10, etc. Each of these collects its own information under that email address. To see everything Microsoft knows about you may require that you sign in under multiple email addresses.

You can learn what Apple knows about. You will need to wait for Apple to send you a file containing what they know about you.

Passwords and Password Managers

Lisa Friedman created this document, which compares both free and paid password managers. The data was taken from the PC Magazine and PC World web sites. Just below the name of each Password Manager you will find the words "rev" in red and "site" in blue. Clicking on "rev" will take you to a review of the password manager. Clicking on "site" will take you to the password manager web site.

In 2012 a computer was built that uses brute-force to guess 350 billion passwords/second.

If you use Google Chrome as your browser, you can download an extension that will check every email address/password combination that you enter at web sites, to determine whether that combination has been stolen, and notify you if it has.

This article explains why you should use a password manager, as does this article.

You can read this review of 6 password managers or this review of 20 password managers or this review of 10 free password managers.

Here's a 13 minute video demonstration of how LastPass works. LastPass uses a sophisticated methods to keep your data safe. You can read about their technology here and here.

Password managers that generally receive good reviews include: LastPass, LogMeOnce, and Dashlane.