- May 26, 2014
- 1,051
Back in 2014 I remember I made an article about making a decent security configuration. However, so many things have changed. In 1 year millions of unnamed threats have been released, new products have been produced, and my knowledge has expanded!
So, without further ado:
How To Protect Yourself (chromatinfish edition)
First of all, I want to cover the common myth that an antivirus is needed (even I believed it in my original article). Antivirus is not needed if you have decent protection and common sense knowledge. The thought of having no AV may surprise you but so many decent products like Shadow Defender and Sandboxie have been released that the AV no longer is the main workhorse of security- however a regular user may still want a light, cheap one.
If so, I strongly recommend using a free one like Avast or Avira. I know some users swear by Bitdefender or Kaspersky but they're paid software with sometimes features that you don't require. If you seriously want to pay, consider ESET or Emsisoft. McAfee (Intel Security) I would avoid as it's expensive and doesn't protect you well.
Firewall? What's that? What's a good one?
A firewall is a wall for your computer, monitoring all connections inbound and outbound to your computer. Technically, the built-in Windows Firewall (or for mac users, OS X Firewall) should be plenty good. Again, paid for programs aren't needed (or recommended) for a decent firewall. Some software like ESET, Kaspersky, and Emsisoft come with built-in firewalls which are completely unnecessary (if your choice of a more expensive license depends on it).
Sandbox- and why it's needed (or maybe not)
A Sandbox is like your backyard one. After all you wouldn't want your sand spread all over your lawn! A sandbox can help protect you by basically acting as a guard between your physical computer and your sandboxed part of your computer. This way, ransomware like CryptoLocker and FBI Locker can't access or block your physical computer data.
Sandboxie is by far the more popular option and it's free, so why not try it out! And please read my guide if you don't know how to use it
. Again, some AV bundles come with a sandbox but it's completely unnecessary if you have Sandboxie.
Rollback Software
Have you wished you could turn back time when you accidentally downloaded malware? Well, you can with rollback software! Rollback software works by saving your original data and after a reboot, your new, downloaded data is now G-O-N-E! This means that a simple reboot can bring back your original system from 1,2, 3 years ago, reverting back to the master system!
Shadow Defender is the most popular of this nice software and it's not expensive (1/7 of the price of an AV license). Toolwiz Time Freeze acts similarly as your original system is "frozen".
So, without further ado:
How To Protect Yourself (chromatinfish edition)
First of all, I want to cover the common myth that an antivirus is needed (even I believed it in my original article). Antivirus is not needed if you have decent protection and common sense knowledge. The thought of having no AV may surprise you but so many decent products like Shadow Defender and Sandboxie have been released that the AV no longer is the main workhorse of security- however a regular user may still want a light, cheap one.
If so, I strongly recommend using a free one like Avast or Avira. I know some users swear by Bitdefender or Kaspersky but they're paid software with sometimes features that you don't require. If you seriously want to pay, consider ESET or Emsisoft. McAfee (Intel Security) I would avoid as it's expensive and doesn't protect you well.
Firewall? What's that? What's a good one?
A firewall is a wall for your computer, monitoring all connections inbound and outbound to your computer. Technically, the built-in Windows Firewall (or for mac users, OS X Firewall) should be plenty good. Again, paid for programs aren't needed (or recommended) for a decent firewall. Some software like ESET, Kaspersky, and Emsisoft come with built-in firewalls which are completely unnecessary (if your choice of a more expensive license depends on it).
Sandbox- and why it's needed (or maybe not)
A Sandbox is like your backyard one. After all you wouldn't want your sand spread all over your lawn! A sandbox can help protect you by basically acting as a guard between your physical computer and your sandboxed part of your computer. This way, ransomware like CryptoLocker and FBI Locker can't access or block your physical computer data.
Sandboxie is by far the more popular option and it's free, so why not try it out! And please read my guide if you don't know how to use it
. Again, some AV bundles come with a sandbox but it's completely unnecessary if you have Sandboxie.Rollback Software
Have you wished you could turn back time when you accidentally downloaded malware? Well, you can with rollback software! Rollback software works by saving your original data and after a reboot, your new, downloaded data is now G-O-N-E! This means that a simple reboot can bring back your original system from 1,2, 3 years ago, reverting back to the master system!
Shadow Defender is the most popular of this nice software and it's not expensive (1/7 of the price of an AV license). Toolwiz Time Freeze acts similarly as your original system is "frozen".
