Two recent incidents brought today’s column topic to mind. The first was when a friend asked for help on a Windows PC that was being eaten alive by malware. The second was when an acquittance gave away some personal information to a link from an e-mail that purported to be from Suntrust bank. What did these two things have in common? If either person had had better than a room-temperature IQ, neither incident would have happened.
The Windows user had never used any anti-virus software. No, I’m not kidding. Never. I’m sure he’s not the only one. If you’re a Windows user, you cannot — I repeat cannot —be on the Internet without anti-virus software. Your system will be infected. It will probably get a case of malware within the first day you’re using it. At the very, very least, get Windows Defender from Microsoft. Better still, give one of the programs I recommend in Free anti-virus software: The best and the rest a try.