SHIELD PROTECTION
The Key to Better Websites
[A] Navigation
Introduction
Importance of the latter : One of the primary implications of a well-organized / good website, is to keep your visitors in the website. A website is definitely created for a purpose, unless intended for personal use, which is the minority.
For example, a portfolio website would want to be visited and it’s content viewed. For companies and internet businesses, your website certainly aims to provide product information, to make sales, or somewhat similar.
However, most individuals undoubtly prefer visually captivating designs, so on and so forth. It is undeniable that this causes no harm, but one must put himself/herself in other people’s shoes, as to understand how a visitor to the website might think, do and react.
1 ) Navigation
As I said, a web designer has to learn how to think the way your visitors think. Situation A : Website with good navigation ( 2-3 hyperlinks to target page ),
well planned in terms of placement, and design. Situation B : Website with poor navigation ( takes forever for the visitor to reach his/her target page ), hard-to-read navigation fonts and poor placement of the navigation buttons/bar.
In Situation A, a visitor will always want to be able to access his/her target page. For example, the individual comes across your website, and is interested in the product sold, but wants to find more information.
He/she finds the navigation with no trouble, and enters the particular product information page. As for Situation B, a visitor stumbles into the website, and would also like to find out more information about the product. Unfortunately, due to bad placement and fanciful font-types, the visitor takes forever, or even fails to find the navigation bar.
Even when he/she does so, links to the product information are nowhere to be found, (example : home > about > products > product image > etc…[a few more clicks] > product information ). Analysis : In both situations, wouldn’t a website with characteristics similar to the Situation A be more rewarding ergo better?
How To Choose Best free antivirus software
Free antivirus software
While I have a near-perfect fix for your PC virus problems — switch to Linux — I know most of you aren’t going to take me up on it. Some of you, though, could probably be talked into going Mac, but while Macs are still a good deal safer than Windows, Mac malware, like the BlackHole RAT Trojan horse are beginning to show up. What’s a user to do!?
Well, if you’re not going to switch operating systems, you should take a look at the free antivirus programs that are available. Yes, there are lots of paid antivirus programs out there such as Norton AntiVirus; Kaspersky Anti-Virus, and McAfee AntiVirus Plus, but there are lots of good, free antivirus programs out there as well. So why spend money when you don’t have to?
Now, if you really doesn’t know the first thing about protecting yourself online, then it probably is worth paying the money for a security program. But, I don’t mean just an antivirus program. I mean a full security suite like BitDefender Total Security 2011; Kaspersky Internet Security 2011; or ZoneAlarm Extreme Technology. These days there are endless threats on the Internet, and if you’re not technically adept it’s all too easy for them to mangle your computer and possibly your life as well.
If you elect to go down this path, I recommend that the first thing you do is to consider the security programs I list above and other top-rated Internet security suites. Next, check the pricing carefully. Many of these programs are available in inexpensive “family” packs for three PCs. In addition, check online for the best price. You can almost always find a deal for better than list prices.
Security basics
If you know your away around your computer, you’ll probably do just as well to just get a free antivirus program. Before you even do that though, make sure you’re already practicing safe computing.
What do I mean by that? Well, for starters, you should always have automatic software updates set up for your operating system on both your Mac and Windows PCs. Sure, doing it by hand may only take 10 minutes a month, but unless you want to control every aspect of your computer why bother? The simple truth is that the most popular attacks on PCs are the so-called zero-day attacks.
While some zero-day problems like the recently discovered Windows SMB (Server Message Block) problem, are unpatched problems, the ones that are usually attacked by malware authors are recently patched security holes. If you don’t patch immediately, you can be sure they’ll be attacked. Yes, your antivirus defenses should catch them before they act — if you’ve kept them up-to-date with automatic updates — but why take a chance?
The same is true for programs you probably use all the time like Adobe Acrobat, Flash or Microsoft Office. Sure, the vendors often don’t get the security patches right, but it’s still safer than relying on the virus writers leaving you alone while you wait for a foolproof patch.
You should also keep a current backup of your system. This is where Mac users, who have Time Machine at their beck and call, have it all over Windows users. With Time Machine, making good backups really is mindless once you’ve set it up.
While Windows does provide some backup and restore features, I prefer to automatically copy off files to NAS (Network Attached Storage) drives with Karen’s Replicator, an old, but remarkably reliable freeware backup program. If you prefer (and you have a fast, and I mean fast, Internet connection) you should also check into online backups. These last have the advantage of, if things go really wrong and your house goes up in flames, your data won’t join it.
The free alternatives
These are, based on my own experience and beating on them in my office lab, the best of the current crop of free Windows antivirus programs. Fair warning, I’m not running an antivirus lab here. What do I bring to the table is decades of experience with Windows, since version 1.02 to be exact and the first big security problem I ever had to deal with was the Internet Morris Worm back in 1988. In other words, I know a thing or two about security.
I also relied on the tests by AV-Comparatives.org and ICSA Labs. Both of these are independent antivirus testing companies.
Before going any farther though, let me just say one more thing: Don’t run two or more of these antivirus programs at once. I keep running into people who think that if one antivirus program is great protection, then two would be even better. Ah, no it doesn’t work that way. What’s far, far more likely to happen is that the two programs will fight with each other and you’ll start seeing slowdowns or even crashes. Just don’t do it. This is one time when you really don’t need belts and suspenders.
While I think little of Windows security in general, I will admit that Microsoft Security Essentials actually works pretty well on my XP and Windows 7 PCs. Security Essentials also has the advantage of, surprise, working hand-in-glove with Windows so you’re less likely to see conflicts between it and the operating system itself and other Windows programs.
That’s the good news. The bad news is Security Essentials simply didn’t pick up as many threats on XP as it did on Windows 7. If you’re running XP, I’d look for another program. It also doesn’t help any that scareware programs, which try to trick you into downloading malware by flashing a fake antivirus warning has taken to imitating real Security Essential warnings. This is one kind of imitation flattery no one needs.
As a known open-source and Linux fan, I’ll bet you think I’m going to have good things to say about ClamAV, the open source antivirus program. I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t. It’s at best OK on PCs. It’s fine to run on a mail server (that’s what I do), but all it does is scan e-mail and downloaded files for viruses and the like and it’s very, very slow. Frankly, the only reason I even mention it is because if I didn’t someone would want to know why. Now you know.
Another popular free Windows antivirus program, AVG has gotten better since I grew discouraged with an earlier version. In particular, I found that it worked faster than before, it no longer gave me false positives, and it did well at cleaning up malware infections. I had to downcheck it though for not catching as many viruses and the like on their way into the system though. Still, I’d consider using AVG again — and I had honestly given up on it.
If you want really fast virus checking, it’s hard to beat Avast. It zoomed along on both my Windows 7 and XP systems. The new version, 6.0, which just came out also includes features, such as Script Shield, WebRep, and AutoSandbox, that give excellent real-time protection.
While I’m tempted to switch to Avast, I’m going to stick with Avira for protection on my Windows systems. Why? Because Avira just works really well and is really fast. Maybe Avast would be better since its recent feature refresh, but I’m going to stick with Avira for now on most of my PCs while running Avast on some of the others.
That is, after all, one of the pleasures of free antivirus software: You can always try them out for yourself at no cost and see which one works best for you. Just don’t, please don’t, try to run more than one of them at a time.
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Hunting Down Spyware and Adware
Most of us hate spyware and adware. Unless you're a web developer which has a couple of spyware and adware programs tied to your credentials, chances are you belong to the majority of web browsers who seek the assistance of anti-spyware removal programs to kill spyware and adware infections in their computers.
There are a number of ways to kill or remove spyware infections. Most of them involve easy enough steps. However, there are times when the computer has been too infected by a multitude of spyware programs that the only solution that remains is to format the hard drive of the computer. To start anew is sometimes the only way to free your computers from such infections.
Nevertheless, there are a lot of anti-spyware and anti-virus programs out in the market that are able to identify and remove, delete or quarantine spyware utilities and their infected files efficiently. Anti-spyware and anti-virus creators are working overtime to keep up with the development of spyware and adware programs. They need to release versions of their anti-spyware utilities as quickly as possible or they will be overrun by spyware's development.
The best way, of course, to rid your computer of these problematic and irritating spyware is to prevent them from entering your system in the first place. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, as they say. You need to be cautious on the websites that you browse. Do understand that most of the spyware programs attach themselves to various advertisements that contain adult contents. The various porn sites in the internet are a cesspool of spyware, adware, malware and viruses.
If you noticed unrelated pop-up ads that regularly appear as you browse the web, this is a sign that your computer is already infected by spyware programs. You should also remember that when you find a spyware software installed in your computer, it is never alone. If you find one, then your computer is most likely a host to several spyware and adware programs. Each of this spyware and adware may even install their own sets of components which can be found in different locations of your computer system.
It is quite fortunate that a number of anti-spyware scanning and removal tools available area able to locate and remove the main spyware application as well as all its embedded components. One other symptom that shows your computer has been a victim to spyware and adware infections is a sluggish system.
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When it takes your computer like forever to load an application or even go to the Windows desktop, there's a big likelihood that spyware and adware has found their way in your operating systems and are hindering the normal speed of your applications.
But why do spyware exist? Basically, spyware applications are very good marketing tool. They enable advertisers to target specific audiences for their campaigns.
The pop-up ads when viewed from an objective view point serve audiences or consumers by providing related links to similar websites and services. But because spyware applications have been used extensively, have been abused and have been used for unscrupulous activities, they have become more of an annoyance overshadowing their potential legitimate benefits.
Among the anti-spyware scanners and cleaners available, SpyBot and Ad-aware are two of the most popular programs. These two are among the best spyware and adware killers in the industry.
