How to Stay Safe While Online

With the amount of malware currently prowling the internet it's becoming increasingly important to adequately protect your computer. This is important for everyone, not just the overly security conscious. Therefore I've compiled critical advice for both novice users and more advanced users. Trust me, there's something for everyone.

Index

1. Ensure Your Computer Is Not Infected

2. Prevent Future Infections Using Internet Security Software

3. Avoid Dangerous Sites And Spam

4. Protection Through Your Browser

• Comodo Dragon
• Firefox

5. Use A Secure DNS Server

6. Limit Program Rights

• A) Use a Least-Privileged User Account (LUA)
• B) Use System Virtualization

7. Back Up Important Data

8. Protect Your Online Privacy

1. Ensure Your Computer Is Not Infected

The first thing you should do when securing your system is to ensure that your computer is not already infected with malware. The following process is very effective and won’t take very much time to check. It is described in detail in How to Know If Your Computer Is Infected. Please read through that article and make sure that your computer is not infected.

2. Prevent Future Infections Using Internet Security Software

Once you're sure that your computer isn't already infected, installing an active antivirus program is one of the most important steps in keeping it that way. Please read this review of the Best Free Antivirus Software. All of the programs reviewed in that article scan for all types of malware. However, the problem with relying only on an antivirus to protect you is that no program can catch all malware. It doesn't matter what detection rate it acheived in various tests. In the real world it will perform much worse. No detection based program can provide, what I would consider to be, adequate protection.

To compensate for that weakness I would advise that you also use a firewall with a built in HIPS component. Specifically, I would recommend Comodo Firewall. If you like, you can even install Comodo Internet Security as it comes with an antivirus, firewall, HIPS, and an automatic sandbox. Both programs are completely free. If you do choose to install Comodo Internet Security, or Comodo Firewall, then you should check out my guide on How to Install Comodo Firewall. However, do realize that all HIPS programs require a little patience in setting up, and initially answering the warnings, but after that they're relatively easy to maintain. I would advise that you try one and see if you can deal with the alerts. If they're really too difficult for you then install a simple firewall that lacks a HIPS, but be aware that the protection offered is much less.

If you do decide not to use a proactive firewall, then a good alternative is to install a behavioral blocker, such as ThreatFire. These attempt to detect malware by its behavior, and should have significantly fewer popup alerts that a HIPS. This is a potent second layer of active defense. However, remember that just as with an antivirus, no program can detect all malware.

3. Avoid Dangerous Sites And Spam

These days it can be difficult to tell whether the site you're on is legitimate or trying to scam you. If you're not confident that a site is safe then you should investigate it using the methods I discuss in How to Tell If A Website Is Dangerous. Also, spam is currently a very large problem for many internet users. Because of this specific danger I wrote an article about How to Avoid Spam. Please read this article and make sure you follow the advice. This will not only help you to avoid spam, but also to surf more safely in general. Also, if you're already receiving spam, then you should read my article about How to Report Spam. It will explain the most effective methods to follow in order to get the spammers shut down for good.

4. Protection Through Your Browser

Almost all popular web browsers now provide significant protection from online dangers. My advice here is limited to Comodo Dragon and Firefox. I do realize that there are many other browsers out there, but I have had to narrow it to these two. Both browsers have built in popup blocking and will also produce warning screens to help you to avoid known dangerous sites. You may also want to read this article about the Best Free Internet Security Safety Check as it reviews some other programs and also contains advice for browsers other than Comodo Dragon and Firefox.

Comodo Dragon

Like all Chromium browsers, Comodo Dragon has built-in secure sandboxing. This makes it especially difficult for outsiders to exploit. One of the most convincing reasons to try Comodo Dragon over Google Chrome is that Comodo Dragon will warn you if the site you are visiting has a SSL certificate that may not be trustworthy. Also, it comes with the option to protect yourself using Comodo Secure DNS, which will block you from connecting with most malicious sites. On a side note, if you are using Google Chrome I strongly suggest that you find another browser. It has serious privacy issues.

Extensions to Use (note that these also work with other Chromium browsers)

Easy To Use For Beginner Users

• Web of Trust (WOT): With this installed, if you happen upon a potentially dangerous site, WOT covers the screen with a warning and waits for you to decide whether to stay or leave. If you combine this with your own good sense then you will be protected from many online dangers. Also, if you choose, you can ignore the WOT warning and go to the site anyway. You can even rate the site if you disagree with the current rating.
• LastPass: This is a secure password manager, with automatic password and form filling. It not only helps protect your passwords, and sensitive data, but also allows you to confidently create strong passwords and change them often.
• Adblock Plus for Google Chrome (Beta): This allows you to subscribe to many different filter lists, which help block unwanted or malicious content. This can include malware domains or unwanted privacy threats. You can subscribe to any of the lists on that page, but be aware that subscribing to too many will slow down your browsing experience. I'd advise subscribing to either Fanboy's List or both EasyList and Malware Domains. The privacy aspects of this program are covered in more depth in part 7.

Recommended For More Advanced Users

• ScriptNo: This addon will block nearly all scripts, and other possibly dangerous content, from executing. This means that even if you stumble onto a dangerous site you cannot be attacked unless you manually add the scripts on that site to your whitelist. Thus you are protected from harmful scripts and many privacy threats. However, many sites use these scripts, and plugins, for legitimate purposes. Thus these sites will not work correctly unless you manually add the scripts on that site to your whitelist. Also, under the options you should select ‘Antisocial Mode’. Using ScriptNo takes some getting used to, but if you are serious about staying safe online then this addon is a must have. The privacy aspects of this program are covered in more depth in part 7.

Firefox

Firefox is a very powerful open source browser. It is quite secure and very popular. The people at Mozilla are constantly searching for vulnerabilities so that they can be patched quickly. They are very quick at releasing these fixes.

Addons To Use

Easy To Use For Beginner Users

• Web of Trust (WOT): With this installed if you happen upon a potentially dangerous site, WOT covers the screen with a warning and waits for you to decide whether to stay or leave.  If you combine this with your own good sense then you will be protected from many online dangers. Also, if you choose, you can ignore the WOT warning and go to the site anyway. You can even rate the site if you disagree with the current rating.
• LastPass: This is a secure password manager, with automatic password and form filling. It not only helps protect your passwords, and sensitive data, but also allows you to confidently create strong passwords and change them often.
• Adblock Plus: This allows you to subscribe to many different filter lists, which help block unwanted or malicious content. This can include malware domains or unwanted privacy threats. You can subscribe to any of the lists on that page, but be aware that subscribing to too many will slow down your browsing experience. I'd advise subscribing to either Fanboy's List or both EasyList and Malware Domains. The privacy aspects of this program are covered in more depth in part 7.

Recommended For More Advanced Users

• NoScript: This addon will block nearly all scripts, and other possibly dangerous content, from executing. This means that even if you stumble onto a dangerous site you cannot be attacked unless you manually add the scripts on that site to your whitelist. Thus you are protected from harmful scripts and many privacy threats. However, many sites use these scripts, and plugins, for legitimate purposes. Thus these sites will not work correctly unless you manually add the scripts on that site to your whitelist. Using NoScript takes some getting used to, but if you are serious about staying safe online this addon is a must have. The privacy aspects of this program are covered in more depth in part 7.

5. Use A Secure DNS Server

Easy To Use For Beginner Users

There are many good free DNS providers currently available. They are relatively easy to setup and require no software. These services use servers that are more secure than your regular ISP, and they even filter out any known malicious content before it ever reaches your computer. If you want to understand the technical details about how they work you can read about them at IP Addresses Explained or DNS Primer.

Below I have listed two of the best services currently available. Please choose the one that best fits your needs. Neither of them will slow down your connection. In fact, you may even notice an increase in speed. Each of these will block known dangerous sites, but at the moment it appears that Norton DNS is more effective. However, both are a very good addition to your protection arsenal. Here are the instructions for how to set up Comodo Secure DNS and Norton DNS.

6. Limit Program Rights

Recommended For More Advanced Users

A) Use a Least-Privileged User Account (LUA)

If you're not running a strong HIPS program then I highly suggest that you use a limited/standard user account (LUA) instead of the default administrator account. Running your computer in a LUA should be able to protect you from the majority of malware. For Windows 7 this is what User Account Control (UAC) is. However, when using a LUA you will have to answer alerts for many of your programs in order to get them to work. If you want to use UAC, but don't like the alerts, you can use TweakUAC. This has an option to run UAC in "quiet mode". In this mode UAC will not display the elevation alerts. For information about whether this makes your system less secure you should read this article.

If you're running Windows XP then I would suggest you download DropMyRights. This will allow you to selectively reduce rights for particular applications. However you will have to manually create, or modify, shortcuts. Also, XP users who are running their computers in a LUA may want to use SuRun to run some applications with more privileges.

Recommended For More Advanced Users

B) Use System Virtualization

You can improve your online protection further by isolating, or sandboxing, certain applications. This means that any program run in it, or downloaded while inside it, will be interacting with a virtual system and thus cannot cause any damage to your actual computer. I would highly recommend using Sandboxie as it is highly effective and easy to use. For similar programs please read this article about the Best Free Protection Utility. Also, a general approach to using the methods discussed in this section is given in this article about How to Surf More Securely.

7. Back Up Important Data

8. Protect Your Online Privacy

If you believe this article deserves anything less than 5 stars then please leave a comment below explaining how you think it can be improved, or where you find fault. In fact I would appreciate any feedback, positive or negative, so that I can improve the article. Your opinions and advice will be much appreciated.