The Internet has become a very important part of our everyday life and the number of Internet users is rising quite rapidly. But at the same time this online service is becoming a vulnerable place with the illegal activities performed by criminal hackers who sometimes attempt to steal your identity and use it to steal money from your account.

Without taking protective measures, it may be only a matter of time before your credit card is hacked or other important information falls into the wrong hands. In order to avoid such mishaps, there are some useful tips you can apply while surfing through the internet.

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What is spam?

Spam is something you have to deal with when it comes to using internet. Spamming is basically a type of marketing activity but because of its annoying and insecure characteristics, it has been tagged as an illegal online activity. But unfortunately that doesn’t secure your inbox from getting flooded with hundreds of spam mails.

Who are spammers?

Spammers are basically a group of people who get paid by a company or some other institutions for sending mails to internet users in order to promote their products, web sites or any other offers. These spammers are equipped with variety of software to forward hundreds of thousands of unwanted, time wasting mails all over the world.

Also spam mails are potential source of viruses. So it is important for you to take necessary precautions to avoid spam. The best way to do it is by minimizing the possibility of your e-mail address getting enlisted in the spammer’s data base because if it gets in then it will be quite difficult for you to stay away from spam mails.

Techniques to avoid spam

Here are some effective techniques that you can use to avoid spam:

1. Avoid posting your e-mail address in websites. There are many websites that asks for your e-mail address to provide follow ups or for registration. This is a gold mine for the spammers to get contacts of active internet users.

Go through the site carefully before posting your e-mail address there. Normally a reputed website does ensure the users that their E-mail address will be kept confidential. This actually binds the site under the obligation not to sell your e-mail address to the spammers which some particular websites does. Make sure that the website where you are posting your e-mail address is coming up with such assurance.

2. Many spammers use their common sense and simply develop their database depending on the commonly used form of E-mail address. For example, if your name is Mike Anderson, then there is a good possibility that you will have your address like mikeanderson@(the domain name).com. This is why you will find it quite hard to get your user ID available according to your exact name as maybe it has been taken already by someone else with the same name. The spammers know this very well, so they get thousands of mailing addresses in their list only through assuming e-mail addresses.

To avoid this, you can use a particular sign or some digits in your e-mail address. Like instead of mikeanderson@(the domain name).com, use mikeanderson(some digits)@(the domain name).com. This will make it harder for the spammer to guess your e-mail address.

3. Another way of avoiding spam is using multiple e-mail accounts. You should keep a primary account only to receive important mails from people whom you know and institutions that you are associated with. When you are in need of registering in a site then it is better to use another e-mail account. This way you can avoid getting your main e-mail address being traced by spammers.

4. Spammers usually scan through internet to gather e-mail addresses by using software that looks for the symbol ‘@’ since this is the common part all internet users have in their e-mail address.

If you have your own web page or a web site then never post your e-mail address there in the actual form. Remove the sign ‘@’ with AT when you are mentioning your e-mail address. Like if your address is mikeanderson@yahoo.com then state it like mikeanderson(AT)yahoo.com. This is very much effective to hide your E-mail address from spammers.

5. Be cautious about downloading free software or trial versions of any programs from the Internet as this free software can expose your contact address to the spammers. In fact many spammers uses this technique to get e-mail addresses by offering free downloads and trial versions of software.

So never download any free software from sites without checking its authenticity. The renowned websites are very much cautious to protect the information of the users. So you should download free software only from sites that are popular in the arena.

6. There is some effective software available in the market that are capable of preventing spam mails filling up your inbox. This anti spam software filters the incoming mails and transfers the spam mails into a separate location.

Norton 360 includes a top rated anti spam program that can free your inbox from spam. This software are regularly updated to always remain one step ahead of the spammers.

Conclusion

So follow the above techniques and use a good anti spam software. Say goodbye to spam and save your valuable time.

Having a computer and keeping it safe and clean is a huge responsibility. There are various kinds of computer security threats that we regularly have to deal with. Among the many hazards, computer viruses are a common source of many other problems that cause data loss, slow performance and misuse your private information.

What is a virus?

A computer virus is basically a software that gets access to your computer by attaching itself with a harmless file or program. At the first place you won’t have any idea about how harmful this program can be. Without giving a slightest hint, the virus will spread all over your system and will literally “kill” it.

Worms, Trojan horses, mail viruses and malware are some of the most common types of viruses that can infect your system.

What are the consequences?

When a virus infects your computer you will face various kinds of problems. One of the initial things these viruses do is to slow down your computer. It will take you forever to run a program or open a folder in your pc. In some cases you won’t even be able to access your important files or can lose them permanently.  This can be devastating.

Some viruses like Trojan horse or malware are used by criminal hackers who try to access your computer to gain access to your credit card information, financial statements, bank account number and other personal information. So viruses don’t cause trouble by damaging your system only but can affect your career or personal security as well.

At its extreme level, a virus can completely destroy your system and shut it down.

Tips to avoid viruses

Good news is there are some real effective yet simple ways that can help you to avoid these deadly viruses. Here we will discuss about the most useful techniques to increase the protection for your computer.

1. Anti virus program or virus guard software is widely used to increase security for the computer. It helps to prevent your system from any virus attack by scanning all the incoming data and files to ensure that they are not infected.

Norton, Kaspersky, McAfee are some of the most popular and useful virus guards that can help you to increase the security of your computer.

2. If you want to ensure better protection for your system then have the hard drive and the registry checked regularly. Often it happens that a virus gets planted inside your system and you won’t know that until it strikes. And when it happens, in most cases there is little you can do about it.

So regularly virus scan your PC. Usually an effective anti virus program manages to detect these viruses before they can harm your system. Then it will notify you about the malicious program so that you can remove it from your machine.

3. Your Virus guard will have no use if it is not regularly updated. Everyday there are new types of viruses and new versions of the old ones are coming in. If your virus guard is not updated then it won’t be able to detect these new viruses.

So never ignore the notifications made by your virus guard regarding updates. You can easily find the updates for your anti virus program online that you can download to strengthen your security system.

4. E-mail is a common source of viruses. Everyday we receive loads of junk mail from different commercial sites or from strangers. Some of these mails come up with attachments. The rule is pretty much simple – never open an attachment that comes with an e-mail from strangers. This greatly reduces the chance of a virus gaining access to your PC.

Setting up ActiveX is a good way to prevent virus attacks. When the ActiveX appears in an E-mail, it actually warns you that this mail maybe carrying virus.

5. Usually malware gets access to your system through various websites and tries to gain access to your personal information. So you should avoid activating a program or downloading files from sites which are reputable, or unknown.

Always use a firewall to increase your online safety. A firewall usually helps the user to prevent virus and hackers that attempts to have access in the PC from different web sites.  Google also includes a warning on search results for sites that may be dubious.

6. USB drives or floppy discs can spread virus as well. Never insert these in your PC without having them scanned to ensure they are free of viruses.

Always remember one thing regarding virus. It is easier to avoid viruses than cleaning them from your infected system (and fixing damage). So give priority to the preventive measures. It will definitely pay off.

Overview

Norton Internet Security 2009 is the fastest, lightest Internet security suite available and is the winner of multiple awards. Easy to use and powerful, it keeps your PC secure from threats like virus attacks, spyware, phishing sites and other malware on the web.  Also check out Norton 360 2.0 for a comprehensive protection and backup solution.

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