viruses, spyware, and trojans, oh my. the internet can be a dangerous place for windows users. countless malicouse codes and unsavory programs roaming the net hammering away at everyone looking for holes in the system. and that's just the background noise, there are hackers out there with their armies of compromised zombie systems aimed at making money and stealing identies. its enough to keep some people offline. only a fool, or a mac user, would be unconcered about the state of the net. but this does not mean that honest web users need be afraid. its actually very easy to set up enough of a defense to keep all but the most determined attacks at bay.

your router is the first and perhaps the most important line of defense. your internet service provider gives you a modem, this is not a router. head down to the store and get a router, any router, you don't need anything fancy. a router will only allow what your computer asks for to reach your computer. the vast majority of malicouse code is sending itself to computers regardless of whether the computer has asked for the code or not. with a router, if you don't ask for it you don't get it, thus with this one simple device you have profoundly improved your computer's security.

make sure your windows machine is running automatic update and that it is fully updated. every second tuesday of the month microsoft sends out patches to known security problems. if you are fully updated you should have a software firewall provided by microsoft which you can find in the control panel. this should be turned on by default but if it is not then turn it on manually. you will recieve warnings the first few days, such and such a program wants access to the internet. if you recognize the program don't be afraid to grant it access. if you don't recognize it it does not mean that it is evil. run a google search to be sure.

just in case a program does manage to get through these first two lines of defense, you also need to run an anti-virus and anti-spyware. these programs are designed to detect malicouse code that is already running or hiding on your system. they have both an active and a passive scan. the passive scan runs at intervals in the background and if it is a good program you wont even notice its running. the active scan will search all the data it can see in a much more aggresive manner. there are many good programs out there available for purchase, but there also are a few free ones that are just as good, if not better, than the security suetes. i do not recommend norton or macafee to anyone. they are bloated, posses far more 'features' than anyone needs and slow down your system even while running the background. if you want to purchase an anti-virus then i would recommend nod 32. if you are poor like me or just want to save some dough i would recommend, and personally use, a free anti-virus called avg and for anti-spyware i recommend adaware.

lastly, every secruity setup must at some point deal with the human element. all these precautions are useless if you choose to open the gate to hackers and evil programs. don't go out in search of evil code. stay out of the dark side of the net. do not open email attachments unless you know who is sending it and the email actually came from them, as evil code can be made to look like an email from any address.

these measures will not make you 100% secure. however, they will prevent 98% of evil code from reaching your system. so unless you really piss someone off you can consider yourself secure.

nod 32 anti-virus
avg free anti-virus
adaware free anti-spyware