Would you deliberately, as the saying goes, “run your car into the ground?” Would you drive it for 150,000 miles without changing the oil, let the tires go totally bald, never change the engine coolant, never change the transmission fluid, never fix the brakes, or never check the belts and hoses? Granted, some people do these things, but they represent a very small minority of car owners. Most folks take care to maintain their vehicles so that they can have safe, efficient and reliable transportation.
Sadly, when it comes to computers, too many people take a lackadaisical approach to caring for their machines. It’s almost as if they think that their computers are magical, indestructible devices that can be abused forever with out consequence.
Today, I finished repairing a computer that was infected with over 200 viruses and spyware variants. Antivirus software was installed, but its license had expired long ago, and no other maintenance had ever been performed. It would barely turn on, and, when it would turn on, it would freeze up and crash. When the customer delivered the computer to me for repair, he confessed right up front. “Dave, I should probably tell you, I was surfing porno websites and I think that’s how the computer got messed up.” Duh.
Two other computers that were part of this week’s work load were in similar condition: multiple virus infections, expired antivirus programs, hundreds of stupid, buggy programs installed, hard drives that had never been defragmented, a complete lack of electrical surge protection, crazy website surfing habits (e.g., click on anything) and updates that had never been downloaded and installed. What were the owners thinking? Why had they run their computers “into the ground?”
Although I’ve expounded the basics of computer security and maintenance many times before in this column, it seems that they bear repeating. Here are some of the less obvious rules of healthy computing.
– Do be suspicious of everything.
– Never open email attachments, unless you are 1000% confident in their content.
– Never click on “the Monkey,” or anything that says you have won a “prize.”
– Do not download wallpapers, screensavers or games unless you are 1000% sure of their origin.
– Do not download or install media players, viewers or video codecs without knowing what they really are.
– Do not download or install any unknown file sharing or transfer program.
– Do not use AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, or Microsoft Messenger unless you know they are virus protected, and are properly configured. The default settings will not do.
– Do not download or install any “web search helpers” or “toolbars,” such as CoolWebSearch.
– Do not download or install any “clock updaters,” or date/schedule “managers.”
– Do not download or install any “PC Health” or “PC Repair” or unknown antivirus programs.
– Do not download or install any “web accelerators” or “download managers.”
– Do not download or install anything to “speed up” your Internet connection.
– Do not download or install anything on your computer via any instant messaging or chat program, or MySpace or FaceBook; just don’t.
– No gambling or porno websites. They can load you up with viruses and spyware! No kidding!
– See Rule Number One.