How to Be Safe on The Internet

You might think that having a free antivirus program to be safe while on the internet is all you need.  The reality is that as good as anti virus software is these days, it’s not enough to keep you and your computer safe and free of problems.

Digi asap

Torrents

Did you miss your favorite TV show last week and don’t want to wait for it to come back on TV again?  Lots of people will download their favorite shows and watch them at their leisure on their computer or phone.  But did you know that you could possibly lose your internet account or be fined?

Using a VPN like you can find at domaincouponspro.com, you can protect yourself from the prying eyes of your ISP and the DMCA.  If you ever download torrents, you should always use a trusted VPN.  A lot of the free ones will leak your IP address or keep logs, meaning that you can get caught.

Streaming

Less and less people these days have a cable package from their local provider.  So many people are just viewing shows online using popular streaming services like Netflix, Hulu or Youtube.  But if you travel out of the country for business or pleasure, your streaming is over.  That is because all of these streaming providers have Geo Blocking built into their systems, not allowing viewing from other countries.  You can get around this problem by using a good VPN which has US servers on their list.  Chances are, free vpn’s won’t work since they are used so heavily the streaming services have blocked them.

Ransomware

If you haven’t heard of ransomware, you probably will soon enough.  Ransomware is the newest and possibly most dangerous and evil types of viruses out there today.  Ransomware usually gets onto your computer or phone via a Trojan.  The types of Ransomware vary, but some of the more potent ones will encrypt your files, making them inaccessible to you unless you pay the ransom the hackers demand.  To date, tens of millions of dollars have been paid out by people and businesses that have been infected with Ransomware.

So how to protect yourself from this danger?  The only way to completely protect yourself against ransomware would be to never go online.  But since that is not an option for most of us, the only real way to add security to your system is to purchase Internet Security Software that includes protection against this threat.  Don’t kid yourself thinking that the free antivirus software you installed is going to save you, it’s not.  Although this software isn’t free, it is a lot cheaper than having to pay a ransom to get access back to your files.  Not to mention the peace of mind that you will get.  To ease the burden a bit, you can always find deals on your favorite anti virus software that contains internet security here.

Safe Browsing for Kids

The internet is full of all kinds of stuff that isn’t safe or appropriate for children to see or watch.  Some parents fix this problem by not allowing their kids to go online.  But what about when they get old enough and need to use the internet to do research for an essay they have to write?  The reality is that we can’t keep our children offline forever but on the other hand, a concerned parent also wants to keep them safe.  Be sure to choose an anti virus package that has a kid safe browsing module, preferably one that you can make adjustments to and also be able to manually block sites that you feel your kids should not be able to view.

KeyLogging

Keylogging, also known as Keystroke Logging is a virus usually imported into your system via a Trojan.  What this virus will do is literally capture all the keystrokes you make on your computer and silently send a log of your actions to a server.  The hackers can then scan through this file and pull out information that many be useful to them.  Do you do your banking online?  If a keylogger has made it’s way into your computer, then the hackers can find your bank’s login information and steal money from your account, or sell your information to rogue hackers overseas.  And you won’t even know it has happened until it is too late.

Conclusion

This list is only a small glimpse into security issues that you can face on the internet but hopefully is enough to make you realize that there are people out there that want to profit from other’s misfortunes.  If you are online unprotected, it is not a matter of IF you will become a victim of one of these issues, it is a matter of WHEN you will get hit.  Drop into your local computer store and chat with them about how many computers per week that come in with viruses on them, and what the costs are to fix them.  You’ll quick enough realize that protecting yourself from the start is a much better idea.