By Windows Talk
5 Most Obvious PC Safety Tips
The best computer safety tips aren’t just free—they also save you money over the long term by keeping you and your computer out of trouble. So whether you want to save money or you just want to avoid spending it, try these 5 most obvious computer tips:
1—Use Your Anti-Virus And Firewall
Almost all new computers today come with free anti-virus and firewall software. Often it’s only free for 60 or 90 days and then you have to start paying for it, but you should use that free trial period to get your money’s worth.
After the trial ends, you can switch to free firewall and anti-virus software. For a free firewall, use the firewall built into Windows. It’ll protect your computer from everything a more expensive firewall will protect you from. Its only downside is that it isn’t as configurable as a paid firewall.
For free anti-virus, I suggest AVG. It may not be as good as the top-tier paid anti-virus products, but it’s close. If you avoid risky behaviors such as downloading strange programs, AVG should do everything you need for free.
2—Make Backups
Your computer will die one day. It could be today or it could be years from now, but whenever it happens, you shouldn’t be surprised. Many times computers die suddenly and there’s no chance of recovering any data.
That means you must make good backups every time you do something important on your computer. When I started using computers, backups were hard and time consuming. Today backups are easy and practically instant.
The best computer backup is one that’s stored separately from your computer. That way whatever destroys your computer, such as a house fire, has less chance of destroying your backup. A great way to keep your backup away from your computer is by making your backup over the Internet.
Two online services, Dropbox and Moxy, both offer free online backups. They do severely limit the size of the files you can backup on the free plan, but if you use both services, you get twice the free backup space. You can also increase the amount of backup space you get by paying a modest monthly charge.
Both Dropbox and Moxy automatically backup your files whenever they change—for example, they backup a document every time you hit “Save”. That means your backups always include your most recent data, which is the best type of backup to have.
Shared with permission from Windows Talk.
