So you’ve just bought a new PC, you set up, switch on, load some software and start playing games, surfing the internet, emailing and chatting to friends via messenger services, downloading and listening to music, filing your recipes, writing and printing your autobiography, accounting for your money, storing your photographs, planning your holiday, researching your family history and helping in the search for evidence of extra terrestrial life when the computer is idle. What a fantastic machine and a bargain at less than £500.00

Unfortunately connecting your fantastic machine to the internet can cause heartache and grief if you don’t take some basic precautions. The majority of problems I fix could have been prevented by running anti virus software and a firewall. Many people don’t install these so here is my quick guide to protecting your computer with some internet security measures.

Complete internet security packages are available from Symantec, McAfee and many others, these are, arguably, better than the free versions, if you have a modern machine and can afford it, buy them. It is however possible to protect yourself for free and this is the very minimum level that I would use.

A firewall. Zonealarm from www.zonelabs.com

Antivirus software Avast from www.avast.com

Spyware removing software. Malwarebytes  www.malwarebytes.org

You should also download the latest Windows updates from Microsoft, including the new Malicious Program Removal tool.