What operating system do you use on you PC or Laptop ?

June 26th, 2010

World in a light bulb.

Today i'm starting a new poll on Ipgp.net . This will be about operating systems. If you care about your security, the operating system can be decisive. If you have a very popular operating system you expect to see a wider range of viruses created for you. If the operating system is not popular then probably virus creators don't waste their time to create programs to exploit the vulnerabilities.

Few years ago we had a lot of security problems with windows XP, caused by the weak security measures from the operating system. That was bad and happened at about 2-3 years from the launch. Read the rest of this entry »

More than 50% of Ipgp users had problems with viruses in the last year

June 26th, 2010

According to a poll that run on Ipgp.net for over 3 months more than 50% of Ipgp.net users had problems with viruses in the last year. This, taking into account that 17% don't know that a virus is, that may led us think that they wasn't aware that they had viruses.

A good thing is 25% of our users never experienced problems with viruses. I hope it was not an answer based on a high self-confidence, or they may had viruses they weren't aware of. Read the rest of this entry »

Best practices to protect your computer

March 27th, 2010

3D render of a bank safe

The problem with viruses is that once you get one it is hard to clean the computer. You have to install windows again.

Installing windows again and again is a pain. You have to save all your personal documents, files, etc. And that's not all: bookmarks, saved passwords. Some of the info can't be preserved.

That is why it is much better to prevent that to suffer consequences. Better safe than sorry. Read the rest of this entry »

What anti-virus software does people use ?

March 14th, 2010

In a poll i ran on IPGP.net i asked my visitors what anti-virus software they are using. The results are good, only 14% of IPGP.net visitors are not using any anti-virus software. 17% of them are using Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 which i consider the best anti-virus around.

Another good part of my users are using Norton Antivirus, which is also a good one but the load it generates to the computer is higher. Read the rest of this entry »

Website security threats

March 11th, 2010

More and more of our daily computer tasks are moving to the internet. Few years ago i used to have a small software for anything: to tell me the weather, to read books, a calendar software, time tracking software. Now, i use all of them online, calendars, time trackers, document editing.

The bad intended persons may lose interest of trying to get into my computer to show me how i can take advantage of the 500$ antivirus which real cost is 1000$. Now the juice is online. The benefit of getting and placing his offer without approval on a website with decent traffic is similar with infecting hundred of thousands of computers. Read the rest of this entry »

3 Reasons you need an anti-virus

March 10th, 2010

If you are new to computers and Internet, or if you just brought a new computer it is certain that you would ask yourself the question: "Do i need an anti-virus software on my computer ?". We will take the case where you use Windows operating system, if you have Linux or Mac this is not something that should concern you.

It was a time when the viruses were made only by executable files that you must run in order for the system to get infected, and that file was copied from a floppy disk. Times changed and i will list 3 reasons why you should get an anti-virus software. Read the rest of this entry »

WordPress hosting vs Normal hosting

March 1st, 2010

WordPress is a very popular blogging platform and recently it is seen as the best content management system around. I can tell you that at least for small websites it is from far the best. Depending on what you want to do you ma find it best to use a framework, or to use joomla or other content management system, but when it is about a simple website or a blog the best choice is definitely wordpress.

Due to it's popularity, most hosting providers are advertising their hosting plans as "Wordpress hosting" or "Blog hosting". Well, i dislike their way they try to tell people that their hosting plan is made for wordpress. WordPress has so few requirements that any hosting plan can support it. There is nothing special that makes wordpress work, or that makes wordpress easier to manage or install. Read the rest of this entry »

How do you protect your mobile phone ?

March 1st, 2010

Have you ever thought about your mobile phone security ? Probably not, and this is because too many devices phones have limited features so they don't support 3rd party applications to get viruses. Neither java application helps the virus creators. Java creates a virtual machine on the phone, so if that something bad happens it will stay into that virtual machine, he can't access other parts of your phone.

What about smartphones ? Are they vulnerable to viruses ? The smartphone creators are much more careful about security, they really invest some time in it, but that can't ensure that the viruses will never come. Read the rest of this entry »

When was last time you had a virus ?

February 28th, 2010

How often you encounter problems with viruses ? I'm curios what precaution methods you use, how you find when you have a virus and how do you handle it.

[poll id="4"]

I did not encountered problems with viruses recently. I'm using Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 and it should tell me if a file is infected. To maximize protection i set the anti-virus to tell me whenever an application wants to modify system data or to modify registry files. Read the rest of this entry »

How do you protect yourself against viruses

February 26th, 2010

We all know that we  are facing a lot of problems because viruses and software vulnerabilities. This is happening mainly because of poor software that lack security issues, and i'm talking here about Windows. If you aren't careful you can end up with all your files infected, and if you don't protect yourself there is not much you can do.

I run a poll here because i want to find out if you use any anti-virus software, and if you do, which one ? Please be honest and vote even if you don't use any anti-virus software. Read the rest of this entry »