Hard Drive Reformatting Should be Part of Regular PC Maintenance

In order to keep my PC performing optimally, there are several actions that I take on a regular basis. First of all, I defrag my hard drive once a month. I also have an antispyware program that is always running which watches for any infections in real time. It also performs a disc scan daily. In addition, I have another antispyware program that I use once a week which scans for anything that my other program may have missed. Lastly, on an annual basis I reformat, or wipe, my hard drive to ensure my PC is performing at optimum capacity.

This is a relatively easy action if you have the basic steps down and allow for some prep time. Reformatting the hard drive consists of fully removing everything from it and beginning again with a clean slate. Of course there are important and necessary things on your hard drive which you’ll need to access in the future so it’s absolutely vital to create a backup of all files, programs and plug-ins. Here is a list of things that I back up:

• Bookmarks and Favorite Links
  
• Dreamweaver Site Definitions
  
• Email (Outlook)
  
• Financial Information (Microsoft Money)
  
• Fonts
  
• My Documents
  
• My Downloads (Programs that were downloaded without a physical disc)
  
• My Music (My iTunes library and other MP3’s)
  
• My Photos
  
• Photoshop Plug-ins
  

For my PC, I have two hard drives. There’s my active hard drive (C drive) and one for backup and archive use. For this purpose, I use an internal hard drive. External hard drives are often slow.

I recommend that once you have backed up your vital data, like those listed above, it’s important to check if you have physical copies of your software. An example of this, and most importantly, would be your operating system. Once you’ve wiped your hard drive, the operating system and any other programs or software will be gone.

Now that everything has been backed up, you’ll begin the reformatting process. It can vary depending on what operating system you are using. Personally, I use Windows XP and wiping my hard drive is pretty simple. You insert the Windows XP CD, reboot and the steps are basically laid out for you. There will be a question which appears asking if you want to format the drive with a warning that data will be lost and you select “yes”.

Check out the Microsoft website for more information on how to wipe your hard drive depending on your operating system:
http://www.microsoft.com

If you do this once a year, you will notice the increase in your PC’s performance. It’s also a good idea to back up your important files frequently throughout the year. That way, when it comes time to do your annual reformatting, the backup will not take as long.

Security Failures of the built-in Windows Firewall

A good firewall should monitor inbound AND outbound connections for malicious threats. I expect a firewall to stop malware before it connects to my system AND protect my personal information by stopping outbound connections from being established. Maybe I have unusually high expectations when it comes to my security online, while that may be true; Microsoft is light-years away from meeting my expectations.

The saying “you get what you pay for” seems to be true in the case of the free Windows Firewall. Microsoft’s Firewall is a part of the security features available within Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2. Millions of PC users rely on the Windows Firewall for protection against malicious viruses and hackers. While monitoring inbound connections for malicious attacks, the Microsoft Firewall may be reliable, but that’s where the reliability with this firewall ends.

Not all malware makes its way onto a system via internet connections. Malware can be installed on a computer system via DVD’s, CD’s, USB connections, software installations and other sources making it necessary for a reliable firewall that monitors outgoing connections at all times.

The Windows Firewall is set to a default setting to allow all outbound connections, pretty much letting cyber thieves broadcast out the user’s personal data or use the machine as a part of a larger botnet, if not just relay spam through the machine. Most home users are unaware that the Windows Firewall is allowing an open, outbound connection because the default settings recommend “allowing connections except when excepted”. As confusing as that statement is, this may seem ok until you realize in the default configuration, there are no outbound ‘block’ rules, only allow rules. In other words, even though the Windows Firewall outbound protection is on, it is not doing anything.

Relying on Windows Firewall is dangerous, but the regrettable truth is most home users will never realize what a complete failure the Windows Firewall is and how it is leaving them open to an attack.

For a firewall that will protect you from malware, monitor inbound AND outbound connections, try the Sunbelt Personal Firewall.

Networking with Strangers – A Social Disaster

Reasons why people accept friend request or follow people they don’t know on social networking communities:

– Just like in high school, Some people are looking for popularity

– Keeping up with the latest buzz across the interwebs

– Potentially finding Mr. or Mrs. Right.

– Easily getting a huge list of people on social networking communities for future spamming. Woot!

Reasons why people shouldn’t accept friend requests or follow people they don’t know on social networking communities:

Cyber Creeps - Underestimating the threat of an online stranger can be harmful. Cyber creeps can harass you not only online, but in person. 90% of the time people online use their real names and their location where they live or work, whether it is state or city. With those two pieces of information, anybody can do a simple google search about you.

Social Networking Buzz Can Sting – The latest buzz across social networking communities usually has some form of malware attached, your real friends would never intentionally send you malware, but a stranger wouldn’t be reluctant. Be aware of the strong possiblity that your computer could become infected with malware with just one click on a link from a stranger you’re following in Twitter.

Spam, Spam and more Spam – There are federal laws to help reduce the volume of spam you receive in your emails, but, there are no federal laws against spamming your Myspace inbox. It’s open to everyone. Online marketers and spammers are crowding the social networking communities, creating fake profiles, adding as many friends a possible and turning on the spam faucet and letting it flow.

Identity Theft – Posting personal information online is not only dangerous, it is reckless. Your name, age and city is enough information for a cyber thief to make off with your identity and you would never be the wiser… until you tried to get a loan or you ran your credit report.

Phishing Scams – Have you ever gotten one of those e-mails about how your “long-lost relative” in Timbuktu left you millions of dollars? These sorts of scams are very prevalent on social media and some are more deceiving than the above example. They can often look like official messaging from the social network whether it’s Myspace, Facebook, eBay or even Google. If you keep your profile setting to private you can often avoid these phishing scams from entering your inbox.

The April Fool’s Day Scare –Y2Conficker

Since 2003, one of the most common PC infections, Conficker or Downup, is responsible for over 9 million system contaminations. The necessity to quarantine the Conficker infection caused the grounding of the French Navy’s air fleet this past January. Conficker, or Downup, is no laughing matter. The UK Ministry of Defense, the Federal Republic of Germany and the British Director of Parliamentary are just a few of the government computer systems which have been infected by the worm.

As April neared, we were all prepared for the worst, with Conficker warnings that the worm would infect millions of systems as a very nasty April Fool’s Day hoax.

A modern day Y2K panic erupted, but rather than storing food and water supplies there was a mad rush to purchase antispyware and antivirus software, update windows patches and install firewalls. As we braced ourselves for this technical disaster…nothing happened.

And thank heavens, but what now?

An Old Dog Playing New Tricks

One nasty thing that PC users often face, that has been around for a while, is rogue antispyware. It basically has one goal – to rip you off and in the process make the authors a lot of money.

This is the way it usually operates:

1. It will infect PCs by using Trojans, browser security loopholes, deceptive ads and other tricky scams.

2. It will intimidate the PC user with fake security pop-up warnings, system scans, browser redirects, system tray warnings and many other methods to lead the user to believing their PC is badly infected.

3. It will often trick you into buying the full version of the malicious software in an effort to clean your PC and completely ripping you off because what you just bought was useless.

Unfortunately, as as PCMag and BleepingComputer stated earlier this week, rogue antispyware is sinking even lower:

http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2009/02/new_rogue_anti-malware_pushes_fake_pcmag_review.php

The rogue authors have a new scam to keep you from removing the rogue antispyware from your PC. Here’s how it works:

The rogue software changes the HOSTS file when it infects a PC which makes users unable to go to legitimate security sites in order to remove the rogue. This means if you were trying to visit sunbeltsoftware.com to download the most recent version of VIPRE to get rid of a rogue infection, you would be prevented from visiting the website and instead you’d be sent to a rogue website.

The even scarier part is that these criminals are now making sites which look almost identical to respectable product review sites like PCMag.com, but have fake reviews of their rogue product on the fake review site to deceive you into thinking it is a legitimate and effective product. The authors of these fake sites and rogue software even go so far as to post actual product reviews for well reputed software written by well known software review editors, but they switch out the product title with the title of their rogue creation.

Pretty tricky huh?! It’s amazing how much energy they are devoting to scam PC users. You wouldn’t think their trickery would work but it’s surprising how often it does.

My recommendation to avoiding this is to always keep your computer protected with Antivirus/Antispyware software and a good firewall. And beware!

The Real Price of Free Antivirus Software

A lot of people have the viewpoint that they shouldn’t have to pay and never will pay for antivirus, it’s a typical topic of conversation among PC bloggers and on forums. But you have heard “nothing in life is free” and this saying rings true here as well.

There are a few different free antivirus solutions such as AVG Antivirus Free Edition, Avast Home Edition and BitDefender Free Edition. These free solutions may not have any license fee or upfront cost, but in the long run they will cost you when it comes to your PC’s performance. Over the last several years AVG has been one of the leading free antivirus solutions, but how free does it actually end up being?

See the charts:

As you can see, AVG costs when speaking of PC performance. Look at it this way, you probably paid about $1,000 for your PC, printer and other peripherals. The performance cost to your PC, for using “free” antivirus, is at least 20%. So, if you do the math, your “free” antivirus ends up costing you $200.

It’s not very logical to buy a brand spanking new PC and then slow it down with security software that robs it of its performance.

I recommend at least trying VIPRE for the best pc performance. It’s only $30 for a year of AV security. Not only is it the fastest that I’ve experienced but also the most effective.

http://www.VIPREAntivirus.com

Beware of Fake Warnings

Have you ever been browsing the web and suddenly found yourself in a really bad part of town, on a website that is dangerous even in passing? Maybe you followed a link looking for some good information, but unexpectedly you are bombarded with pop-up after pop-up. The worst is when something suddenly begins to download automatically and you can’t back your way off the website fast enough or stop the download because your not superman and moving as fast as a speeding locomotive with the mouse in hand is just not a reality for you.

This happened to me today; I made a wrong turn at Albuquerque and found myself in a terrible neighborhood so to speak. This doesn’t happen to me very often but when it does I freak out. It’s such a strange feeling, my heart starts pounding, I curse under my breath and furiously try getting my hand and brain in sync to either close the browser completely or click the back button. Sometimes, I swear it’s like I’m moving in slow motion. I just can’t seem to move fast enough, similar to those terrible nightmares we all get from time to time, where you’re trying to run, maybe somebody or something is chasing you, and your legs won’t move.

After I regained my coordination and got the hell off the site, it took me a few minutes to get my heart rate back to normal, the feeling back into my fingers that went slightly numb and my brain to register exactly what the heck just happened. Of course I always feel guilty afterward; I look around to see if anyone noticed the events that just took place. I look around to see if anyone noticed how rattled I was. That’s when I realized I’m way overreacting and begin to feel like a complete jackass… but am I overreacting?

This is just one way that Trojans spread, you just follow a link and suddenly something begins to download or you try to close a pop-up and instead of getting rid of them they begin installing something on your PC.

Pop-ups that deceive so many people are fake security warnings, they look so real.

This is the type of pop-up I found myself faced with today, along with this pop-up something immediately started to download itself. How many people see these types of warnings and actually click on them? How many people go onto a website where something automatically starts to download, and the user doesn’t even realize it? Quite a few I would imagine, that’s the reason for this post.

The worst thing about this type of deceptive pop-up is the little X in the upper right does not close the pop-up, it actually initiates a download, clicking anywhere on the above warning will start a download, even the NO button. If you see a warning like this while on the internet, don’t click anywhere on it, back your way off the site or close the browser all together.

After an event like this takes place, the first thing I do is a deep scan with my
antivirus /antispyware software and pray like hell nothing has actually infected my machine. An infection that goes unnoticed can wreak havoc on a computer system. Keep your PC running fast and infection free by installing and using legit antispyware or antivirus software as well as a good firewall to prevent unwanted files from downloading.

If you find yourself in a bad neighborhood on the internet, there is good reason to overreact… I think so anyway.

Advanced Vista Optimizer 2008

Recently I had a contact on MySpace who is really baffled because his PC running Windows Vista is sooooo much slower than his other PCs running Windows XP. I am typically an XP user and I have yet to compare the speed of the operating systems. I had a laptop for a short period of time that ran Vista, but I didn’t use it very long, luckily I never noticed any performance issues.

For any of you who are like my MySpace friend and fed up with sluggish performance on a Vista system you may want to check out Advanced Vista Optimizer.

Download the eval here:
http://www.wugnet.com/affiliates/default.asp?pageid=1498

If you like the software and you notice an increase in speed, it’s only $40.

Also you may want to check out: http://www.vistanews.com this is a newsletter for Vista users, it has some great info, tips and tricks.

As a last resort, if you are really fed up with Vista, you can always beta Windows 7.

The Complete Rogue Antispyware Directory

Rogue antispyware is fake or phony antispyware that is made to look like real legitimate antispyware software. Most rogue antispyware gets installed on computers through malware and Trojans and the user has no knowledge that the program was even installed until they start seeing warnings all over the place that their PC is infected. But sometimes users themselves install the rogue antispyware because they don’t know what to look for in quality security software.

Rogue antispyware is created to be downloaded onto people’s computers with or without their knowledge, scare the living heck out of them with falsified security warnings and demand payment for the software before fixing the non existent threats.

Besides taking advantage of gullible people who fall for the sneaky scam, rogue antispyware can wreak havoc on a system, making a PC buckle and come crashing to its knees. When rogue antispyware infects a computer the users will sometimes find themselves facing the following issues:

• Visibly slow and sluggish PC
• Constant pop up advertisements
• Internet browser redirecting spontaneously
• Limited or no internet connection
• Endless security warnings made to look like official Windows warnings

Not to mention the possibility of personal data loss to hackers who create and market this corrupt software. When I say personal data loss I’m talking about banking, credit card and login information to secure websites you visit.

Recently a new website has been created that documents all rogue antispyware; it claims to be a complete directory of rogue antispyware:
http://rogueantispyware.blogspot.com

This website is a great one to bookmark and check often for new rogues that come out. Be sure to check out this site and before you download any PC security software, always check to make sure it’s legit and quality software or you may find yourself downloading a rogue which can cause you great pain in the long run.

Keep your PC running fast – say no to rogues!

Trial Software

PC’s are like refrigerators, from time to time we need to go through the old stuff that we most likely forgot about, has expired and is taking up valuable space and toss it. Though software won’t get old, start growing bacteria and stinking, it will hog disk space and start to bog down your PC’s performance.

Often I download trial software and realize it’s not exactly what I’m looking for or I use it a couple times then it expires and I pretty much forget about it. Just the other day I downloaded a few different programs that all did basically the same thing until I found the one that worked best for me. I actually downloaded about 4 or 5 screen capture programs until I found the one that I liked the best that allowed me to capture a scrolling document. Then I had to go through the process of removing the software that I didn’t end up using. What a pain! Going through the software removal process I found about 3 additional software trials that had expired from a while back which I removed too.

To maximize your PC’s disk space it’s always a good idea to be on top of the software that’s installed and remove the programs that you are not going to use anymore, including expired trials or software demos.