Your $500 car gets a regular oil change, why not your PC?
After all, a good laptop is a US$1,000 commitment and people still treat them casually.
This week we have a look at ten ways you can protect your systems.
Honourable mention: Liquids
Iain Thomson: Liquids do have their place in PCs, ideally in hermetically sealed cooling systems used to suck heat from overclocked processors. However, in pretty much every other case, they don’t; period.
This I discovered to my cost a few days ago when a clumsy reach for the water glass left my laptop deader than purple corduroy bell-bottoms with tartan leg patches. Despite advances in waterproofing (especially sealing keyboards) the average laptop can still be killed quite simply by the humble glass of water. But if it’s sugary tea or wine you might as well just give up and go home.
This goes for PCs too. Whenever the UK suffers one of its periodic floods the TV footage always shows desktop PCs left in swirls of murky water, when moving it upstairs would have saved a fortune.
If you’re going to be drinking anything near a computer make sure it isn’t in the splash zone. The average office might make that difficult but at home, take care.
Shaun Nichols: A few years ago we formally entered the age of portable computing, and with it an increase in catastrophic events which I like to refer to as "oh s**t" moments. Few things can inspire a tirade of four-letter words like a glass of water or a cup of tea sprayed across your computer.
It used to be that this wasn't such a big risk. Old systems would often be safely tucked away on the floor or at least elevated a bit on a desk. In the modern era of handheld and laptop computing, however, spills have become an even greater hazard.
As notebook systems stack all of the vital components of a system in an area under or around a keyboard, the parts most susceptible to damage get put right in the line of fire. These days users would be well-advised to keep a close eye on nearby drinks and watch their systems accordingly.
10. Don't give in to 'peer' pressure
Shaun Nichols: Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are great way to quickly exchange files with users around the globe. Unfortunately they're also a very good way to spread malware around the globe.
As we all know, much of the traffic on peer-to-peer systems comes in the form of compressed files or application installers. It's simple for those who want to spread malicious software to tie a Trojan in with those bundles and have an easy way to infect new users.
If you're going to use peer-to-peer networks to obtain who applications and compressed archives, it's probably a good idea to have some very good security software in place as well.
Iain Thomson: P2P networks can be a real blessing if you want to move large files around without resorting to an FTP site. But casual use can be deadly to a PC.
There are too many people using P2P networks, and Bittorent sites, to download material of which they don't know the provenance. This is a computer screw-up waiting to happen and malware writers are already using the P2P channel to distribute malware on an every-increasing scale.
Quite simply, if you don't know what it is don't download it. Sadly there are too many people ignoring this advice and downloading material that they know nothing about. Doing so could be very expensive in terms of time and effort to make sure you have a clean machine.
9. Reinstall
Iain Thomson: ‘If at first you don’t succeed try and try again’ was drilled into us at school but for software it just doesn’t work.
If you’ve got an application that is causing endless problems take another approach. Shut down everything else and check if it still does what you want. If not, then back up its files and then uninstall it, and do a reinstall.
This might seen extreme but it works. If there’s a problem with the code due to a plug-in then that will be lost and you can build things up again. Even better, if the fault is caused by malware then you may have eliminated a threat.
This does however require a modicum of organisation. Store your software CDs in a CD holder and include the serial numbers. But also photocopy the numbers as a back-up. Just because it’s analogue don’t mean you won’t lose it.
Shaun Nichols: I'm a big fan of the "nuke and pave" strategy for solving system issues.
As the years go by, things like forgotten downloads and plug-ins or library files from deleted applications can start to accumulate. In addition to wasting space, this can also pose stability problems if some obscure component or forgotten app has a compatibility issue with another tool.
Every once in a while, it's not a bad idea to just archive all of your important docs and then re-install the whole system from scratch. This is a bit extreme and rather time-consuming as you have to re-install and update everything again, but it's also a sure-fire way to solve performance problems and rid yourself of any unwanted malware or adware that you may have picked up.
8. Don't overstuff your hard drive
Shaun Nichols: Now that we're more than ten years into the internet age, and with the growth of broadband connections even the most casual users are finding themselves with extensive archives of multimedia files. Additionally, the ongoing economic crisis and low take-up of Windows Vista has left many users sticking with their older systems.
When you combine these factors, you end up with a lot of very full hard drives. Having an overstuffed drive can not only make managing your archives a headache, but it can also hamper system performance.
Most people don't know just how much an overfull hard drive can slow down their system, but having a stuffed drive can bog performance down even more than a fragmented drive in some cases.
To keep things speedy, try to keep your drive from getting too stuffed.
Iain Thomson: Ideally you should never have more than three quarters of your drive space taken up with data.
With storage costs dropping fast there is really no reason to have an over-full hard drive. Get a USB external drive and free up your system. You'll not only enjoy faster computing but you'll spare yourself the problems of an early hard drive failure.
As matter of course you should be backing up everything on your drive to an external source anyway. If you do this there's really no need to have an over-full drive apart from laziness. Ask yourself what you cannot do without easy access too and delete everything else.
7. Turn it off, then on again
Iain Thomson: Shaun and I are both huge fans of the IT Crowd but the cliché isn’t that far from the truth.
At a long-ago COMDEX Bill Gates reportedly said “If General Motors had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving US$25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."
The length, and very funny rebuttal from GM turned out to be a hoax but one of the best points from the anonymous author was “Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.”
Restarting your system is seldom a bad idea if it starts running choppily. Linux systems know this, which is why netbooks are perfect for the fast-starting open source technology.
One final point. There's a prevailing myth that computers should be left on all the time, since shutting them down then firing them up harms the circuitry. This was true over a decade ago but is no longer the case.
Shaun Nichols: Roy and Moss would have been proud of this one.
It may seem like a silly thing, but simply rebooting can solve even the most bizarre issues. The longer a system runs, the more information that gets left around to clutter up memory and eventually make things run slow and even cause crashes in many cases.
This is particularly true for office systems where heft applications such as browsers and spreadsheet apps are launched and shut down numerous times over the course of a day and users often leave systems running at the end of the day.
As it turns out "have you tried turning it off and on again?" isn't just a recurring gag, it's also a very good way to cure what's ailing your PC.
6. Defragment regularly
Shaun Nichols: Defragmentation is a process well known to IT pros, but largely a mystery to most home and office users.
The problem occurs, more or less, when new data is written onto a hard drive. As information is installed and deleted, blocks of data get shifted around to different locations on the hard disk, and eventually everything becomes so jumbled that overall performance begins to slow.
Defragmentation tools help to solve this problem by taking the small empty blocks of storage space and moving them into one large block while also organising saved files and applications together in the same region.
These days, Windows ships with a built-in defragmentation tool, and it's a good idea to run it every so often to keep performance up to snuff.
Iain Thomson: Defragging the hard drive is an essential duty, which not only give you more space on the drive can hold but also increases its life span.
If you have a clogged up drive with lots of deleted of frequently moved data then the spindle on a platter drive has to move around much more. This increases wear on the drive and makes a failure more likely.
Many geeks grew up to cries from parents that we should clean up our rooms. When it comes to drives you might want to take that advice.
5. Avoid alpha and beta versions
Iain Thomson: This is important for the bog-standard user but especially true if you are running any type of corporate systems.
I’ve never understood why people occasionally queue through the night so they can be the first to buy a new operating system or gadget. iPhone buyers found out in a hurry that Job’s hit them with a nerd tax when they did and anyone who voluntarily rushes to install an operating system needs their heads examining.
When it comes to technology being first may have a cache to some, but this vanguard will encountered all the bugs, blocks and conflicts the programmers never even considered.
After the first human wave has eliminated the most obvious pitfalls the more canny computer user steps in. Personally I don’t touch anything that’s version one unless it’s really exciting, particularly if it’s Microsoft code.
Shaun Nichols: Many of us love to run the latest and greatest products, and using a beta version of an app is the geek equivalent to buying a band's t-shirt before they sign a major label deal.
Unfortunately, early adopters often pay a heavy price. Alpha, Beta and Release Candidate builds are quite liable to be very unstable and conflict with other components of a system. The only version they are released to the public is so developers can gather data on what doesn't work and what still needs to be fixed. Data on crashes is usually logged and uploaded.
Those who use pre-release versions of software are essentially volunteering themselves as test subjects for the developer. This is by no means a bad thing, particularly for open-source and community-produced applications, but don't be surprised when that beta program takes a dive on you.
4. Empty out your batteries
Shaun Nichols: Nothing is worse than having your battery die on you when you need it most. We've all experienced it at one time or another, and having a battery go out can put one you into crisis mode.
Because of this, most users like to keep the batteries on their phones and notebooks at maximum capacity and charge up even when the battery is not significantly depleted. Unfortunately, this is not especially good for the battery and can eventually lead to a significant depletion in overall capacity.
To prevent this, most vendors recommend that every month or so you completely drain your batteries to preserve a constant 'zero point.'
Doing this is simple enough; run your notebook or handset as normal until the battery becomes low enough that the system shuts down. After the device shuts down, leave it unplugged for several more hours, perhaps even overnight, then plug it back in and charge to full capacity.
Iain Thomson: In olden days we used to joke that no matter what a manufacturer said a laptop's battery would last 1.5 hours, no more and no more.
The situation has improved somewhat but lithium-ion batteries are still touchy little buggers and need to be treated right in order to survive. Shaun's advice is good; drain monthly and you'll get a lot more out of your laptop battery than if you constantly fill it up with little sips of power.
This isn't only necessary to extend the usable life of your computer; the planet will also owe you a favour. Batteries are really hard to recycle economically and you should do everything in your power to keep them going for as long as possible.
3. Application security
Iain Thomson: Using an insecure application is opening yourself up to a whole heap of problems.
Application vulnerabilities are the number one attack vector used by malw are, particularly in the browser sphere. Do neglect this leaves you wise open to attack, from malicious code embedded in web sites or by rogue attachments.
You must always have your applications patched, and do it from the corporate web site not a pop-up window when you try to view a video; a favourite attack of late.
But also use applications smartly. Malware writers primarily go for the biggest target they can, in this case the most popular applications. Personally I use Internet Explorer when I have to, Firefox when I want to and Chrome when I need to. IE is the most risky, Firefox the most enjoyable and Chrome so obscure no-one is really writing malware for it.
Shaun Nichols: Another recommendation I would make is to be very wary about e-mail attachments.
While browsers and operating systems are the most popular targets, malware writers also take aim at commonly-used applications such as Word and Excel. It's always good to be very wary of attachments that look suspicious or come from an unknown source, particularly attachments that claim to be bills or receipts.
Installers are also something to be careful with. We covered this when discussing P2P, but bundling malware with an installer is a common trick. If you find an installer that you don't remember downloading or perhaps one that came from a strange source, toss it in the trash. If you really want the software, try getting it directly from the developer or from a trusted download site.
2. Patching
Shaun Nichols: This is one of those things that is so simple and quick to perform, yet so incredibly important, that it is a wonder so many people still don't do it.
Vendors regularly put out patches for applications and operating systems, and with good reason. The patches fix everything from performance issues to stability problems to security vulnerabilities, and they're almost always very small and free of charge.
The security angle makes patching particularly important. Malware writers love to target memory errors and buffer overflows when exploiting systems, and unpatched systems are the 'low hanging fruit' for attackers.
If everyone were to keep their systems updated and patched, untold amounts of time and money could be saved in both the consumer and business space, and the web as a whole would become a much safer place.
Iain Thomson: Shaun has it right, but the problem isn't just users not patching, but companies refusing to introduce the patches in the first place.
The length of time some companies take to release patches is inexcusable. In some cases patches take years to be released. It all depends about how important the manufacturer thinks it is.
Part of the problem comes in how vulnerabilities are discovered in the first place. Obviously software vendors check but there's also a thriving industry in freelance security consultants who are doing the same. In the vast majority of cases these researchers work with the manufacturer to fix the problem before publishing details on the fault.
But malware writers have they're own crackers on the case, and they don't tell anyone but their bosses about software vulnerabilities. Just thank you lucky stars that talented hackers like Dan Kaminsky, the NSA black crewe, Len Sassaman and DVD Jon are on our side.
1. Security software
Iain Thomson: Using a computer on the internet without security software is like mixing with the tax office. You stand a vanishingly slim chance of getting away with it but chances are you’ll lose money and gain sleepless nights.
Researchers using unsecured ‘honeypot’ machines, put online to collect information about malware distribution, measure the time before a virgin machine is infected in seconds not minutes.
Any time you put a new computer online the first job is to install operating system and application patches. Next comes the security software, if you can’t do it concurrently, and make sure you update the virus signature file immediately and then run a full scan in safe mode.
Identity theft is now a big problem around the world and it is the duty of every computer user to keep their systems safe. Infected PCs are used as virus and data depositories and take part in distributed denial of service attacks. Perfectly nice, if clueless, people have infected PCs in their living rooms that are the digital equivalent of a gang of Hell’s Angels.
Shaun Nichols: Going on the web without security software these days is like hiking through Norway in December without a coat on. In fact, it's so senseless that if you're reading this site you likely would never do it.
As such, I'll discuss something more specific - trusted security tools. Because protecting your computer is such a big deal, a lucrative industry has emerged for both legitimate security tools and the digital equivalent of snake oil.
There are countless applications that profess to remove malware and unwanted files from your system, but which do little more than take your money and, in some cases, further infect your PC. Security experts refer to them as " rogue" security tools and they use things such as fake scans and misleading alerts to convince you to download and pay for the product.
So not only should users make sure they're running security applications, they should also make sure that the security tools they're using are from trusted and reputable vendors.
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