Ladies and gents,

I've been without cable and internet access for several months now, the wife and I do all our surfing via smartphones, it has become very tiresome. On Monday I get wired back into the information super highway grid we all refer to as the internet.
I run my laptop wirelessly and my 360 stays wired in 24/7. I have a Linksys modem and a Linksys (Cisco) wireless router. I also run a free version of AVG anti-virus and malwarebytes on my laptop.

I was hoping some of yall could give me a few tips to stay protected with little effort.
Also what are some things I should install right off the bat?
How can I make sure my computer isn't already infected?
How to best protect from future problems?


Thanks
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The best I have seen, and by seen I mean it has totally cleaned up and kept protected a desktop that had over 10000 critters in it.

Norton 360. You get 3 lics with it to use. The down side is they last a year and you have to renew. I just look for a sale and get the new version for a little less than the renewal fee.

I also use Firefox for a browser as there are less critters targeting that out there.
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Does the Linksys router have a hardware firewall integrated? Most of the ones produced these days do. That should be a good front line defense against getting hacked directly.

For viruses and stuff, I'd avoid anything with McAfee or Norton in the name. Those programs are horrible about taking over your pc, almost acting like viruses themselves at times.

A good free virus scanner is AVG

For free spyware scanning, I'd recommend Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. Use a couple of them cause one doesn't always cover everything out there.

Leave the Windows Defender software firewall running and it should give a good software backup to the router.

Overall, the best advice is just to be aware of where you are surfing the web. Stay away from Sex and Warez sites. Don't ever open email attachments unless you know exactly what they are.
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If you want a good software firewall in addition to the Windows firewall, I'd recommend Zone Alarm. They have a free version of the firewall. It's great at making your computer appear 'invisible' to port scanners and stuff that hackers run constantly.
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Run Linux.

Seriously, I have a laptop that dual boots windows xp and ubuntu linux. I use linux about 98% of the time. Does pretty much everything I need it to, including surfing CA. And it costs $0. And it's much less susceptible to viruses. I only use windows when I absolutely have to, like if one of my textbooks comes with a software cd that only runs on windows or mac.

You can also get versions of linux that run off of a cd or flash drive, so you don't take up hard drive space.

The suggestions above are also installed on the windows side of my pc.
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