Internet Safety Guide: How to Protect Yourself Online Discussion

By: Charles P. Jefferies

Internet threats continue to pose a problem for anyone that surfs the Internet -- and yes, that includes you reading the headline and thinking you know it all. In this article we will show you how to protect yourself using some "best practices" for safely surfing the Internet, all without spending a dime.

Read the full content of this Article: Internet Safety Guide: How to Protect Yourself Online

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does Google Chrome have ad blocker and the other safety precautions firefox has?

 

Depends on what you mean by "ad blocker," but the simple answer is yes. Chrome has a pop up blocker by default just like Firefox. There are also extensions that will block ads just like there are add-ons in Firefox.

While the article suggests Firefox, just about any browser, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera to name a few, is going to be safer than Internet Explorer. Bottom line, avoid IE.

 

Linux. Linux. Linux.

Enough said.

 

I use Firefox and I use the NoScript extension. This blocks all the scripts that automatically run on a site. You can allow the script to run by the site, page, or link. I highly recommend this extension for Firefox.

 

Thank you Chaz, great job. If only everyone would get into the habit of safe surfing.

 

NoScript is a great extension. Unfortunately it is not a "set it and forget it" extension and does require some tinkering on the user's part (setting certain sites to allow scripts) so I chose to leave it out for simplicity's sake.

I would have included more browsers in here but again for the sake of simplicity I left out all but Firefox and IE, which are the two most popular. Firefox has the most support amongst any third-party browser.

 

It does, you can see this recent article: http://www.notebookreview.com/defau...+Chrome+Extensions+for+Better+Faster+Browsing

Thanks for the article Charles. I'll also add that avoiding spammy looking sites and especially sites will go miles to helping you stay safe. That said, even the NYTimes.com can get you infected if there's a malicious ad swap: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/times-site-was-victim-of-a-malicious-ad-swap/

So you should always have an anti-virus and spyware tool running, any site is vulnerable to that.

 

Also, what I do if I really need to run a program classified as "unsafe" and am worried whether it can do something bad, I have installed a little program called Sandboxie ( wiki) -- what it can do is load a program into it's virtual environment so the only modifications the program can do are within that environement and not your drive/win registry etc.

I mention it here because you can also run a web browser through "Sandboxed" enviroment making it highly more secure. Again, I don't use it on regular basis, only if I need to visit a website or run a program that's been marked as "unsafe" and it's probably a false positive.

 

might I also recommend running Malwarebytes occasionally?

 

I sincerely hope McAfee's inclusion was just as an example and not an ad in disguise.

Firefox's extension called "Web of Trust" does the same thing without nagging you to buy McAfee's products.

 

McAfee's Site Advisor tool is free and does not nag you to buy McAfee products . . .

 

Might be, but even if it is it is probably best sense it is well known and trusted name to most. Chances are anyone who knows of other products already uses them anyway.

 

This is very helpful and excellent advice for safe internet surfing.

I would also recommend getting a free anti-virus. I have used Avira 9.0 free version last year and it performed admirably. A new free version 10 is out and I recommend you guys check it out.

Also in addition to that I use the Comodo firewall. It has a learning curve since it asks you for permission every time you try to do something. But with a little bit of patience and experience you can have an above average security on your computer.

Also do not ignore any prompts for acrobat updates by Adobe.

Last but not least: keep your flavor of OS updated at all times.

 

Also, if you load PDFs, make sure you turn off javascript in Adobe Reader, just to be safe.

Also, I second that recommendation for noscript. If you don't want to keep whitelisting sites (actually, it is very easy to use, just click on the icon, then the site you want to unblock), just set it to allow all sites globally. You will still get some protection (cross-site scripting).