Safer surfing on the cheap

As an aside from Plastic Surgery I'd like to highlight a few FREE resources that will make your Internet experience safer. As computer viruses, mal-ware (programs that cause problems with your computer), email SPAM, tracking "cookies" (bits of code that can trace your activity), key-stroke logging (programs that record all keyboard activity), and Phishing (obtaining secure information using false pretenses) are increasingly common, you should not be using the Internet "naked".

There are many excellent commercial software programs (ie. Norton's, McAfee, etc..) and built-in Windows features which help with this, but you can get many of these types of programs for free which are superior to the included Windows programs. (follow the highlighted text for direct links)



AVG Anti-virus has an outstanding free anti-virus with updates for non-commercial users


Spybot S&D is the atomic bomb for destroying malicious software, tracking cookies, & key-stroke logging programs



Zone Alarm is an award-wining firewall which has a great bare-bones free version