Keeping your Computer safe from Hamaz rockets

Ok, I know that on the face of it, avoiding Hamaz rocket attacks is not normally a part of day-to-day computing for most of us. It can however become a really exciting feature of life if you happen to find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, as I did on May 14th when I visited Ashqelon in southern Israel around the time a local shopping mall was hit.

This incident prompted me to remember the wise words of an old mentor of mine and say: “Time I weren’t here!”

In any case, let me state categorically that if your computer is hit by a Hamaz rocket, you will need a new one, since there probably won’t be enough left of it to warrant repair. But whilst there may be no known defence against your machine being blown to smithereens by Palestinian militants, the same cannot be said about it being attacked by spyware or viruses.

Over the next couple of months, I’ll be introducing you to the tools needed to keep your computer as safe as possible from infection by an assortment of unwanted, generally annoying and occasionally even potentially dangerous gubbinry via the internet or emails.

Whilst you could of course visit your friendly local computer shop and buy an overpriced security package, an assortment of free tools available on the internet will usually do the same job as the pricey brand-name software.

Firstly, you will need to visit www.download.com so as to be able to download the free anti-virus and anti-spyware tools I’ll be covering over the next few issues.

On the download.com website, type “Avast” into the search box at the top of the screen and click “Go”.

The file you’re after is: “Avast Home Edition 4.8” Click “Download Now”, then click “Save” to download the program.

When this download is complete, search for “Spybot Search and Destroy”.

The file you’re after is: “Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.5”. Download it in the same way you did Avast.

Next, you’ll need to search for “Adaware”.

The file you’re after is: “Ad-Aware 2007”. Once again, download it in the same way as the previous two programs.

After all three downloads are complete, double-click on each file in turn to install the programs onto your computer. The installation process for each program is straight-forward, only requiring you to follow the onscreen prompts and click next. And that’s the job done for the moment.

You can find instructions about using Avast by clicking here.

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