Understanding and Making Better Use of the Internet
The Internet has become an essential part of the basic infrastructure
of a modern society. Using the Web and e-mail are probably the biggest
reasons for the average PC user to have a computer. On this page are articles
and tutorials to help you get more out of the Internet and to better
protect your system from possible Internet hazards.
Unfortunately, there are dangers on the Internet. Like all activity
involving large numbers of people, there are crooks and charlatans, thugs
and sociopaths among the participants. Out of the hundreds of millions
involved, some are bound to be not very nice people engaged in not so
honorable pursuits. Also the software companies have tended to neglect
security measures for the sake of convenience and ease of use. A locked
door is not as easy to use as an open one. The bad news is that unscrupulous
and just plain malicious types are taking advantage of unwary PC users.
The good news is that common sense and some precautionary steps will
suffice to protect most home computer users.
Read an article describing the steps
that everyone should take to ensure the safety of their computer. Anti-virus
programs, firewalls, spyware and Trojan removers, Windows updates, and
system configuration are discussed. A slide show is also available. Click
here to view
Since this page was first put together. Internet safety has become such
a large problem that I felt a separate Web site concentrating on how
to deal with the various Internet hazards was needed. This
newer site (http://surfthenetsafely.com)
is dedicated to helping the average PC user make full and safe use of the
Internet. In addition to the new and updated material that is there,
much of the material on Internet safety that was formerly on this site
has been moved to the new site and some of the links here will redirect
to this newer site. Posted there are articles about protecting your computer
against malicious software such as viruses, worms and Trojan horses and
about dealing with problems such as spam, phishing, and spyware.
There are articles about making Internet
Explorer safer and how to read email with safety..
The present page will continue to have articles and presentations
on understanding the Internet and how to make it work better for you.
Computers
interact with the Internet through a variety of pathways known as "ports".
Keeping these ports or doorways on your computer closed to intruders
and to malware is an essential part of Internet security. This
article explains what ports are, the role of firewalls in protecting
them, and how to test them for security.
In order for computers to communicate with one another, standard methods
of information transfer and processing have been devised. These are referred
to as "protocols" and some of the more common ones such as TCP,
IP, UDP, POP, SMTP, HTTP, and FTP are discussed
here.
Windows has a whole array of helpful command line tools, including a number
of programs for configuring and testing Internet and LAN connections. On this
page at a sister site is a discussion of some of the networking tools
that can be useful to an average PC user.
Windows XP has a local cache for resolved DNS addresses. This
article explains how to configure it to make browsing faster.
The struggle between Internet marketers and viewers who wish to keep their
Web surfing habits private has escalated again. The latest technological
trick of Internet marketing is called persistent identification element,
or PIE. Read about it here.
A privacy settings file in a special XML format can be imported into Internet
Explorer 6 to customize and fine-tune the control of cookies. This
article discusses this easily applied method and gives an example. A second
article discusses the structure and creation of a privacy file
Our present reactive method of providing security for PCs has become cumbersome and often ineffective. Here
is an article suggesting some alternate ways to keep malware out.
Internet Explorer 7 has some added features and a somewhat different interface from IE6. Some shortcuts and tips specific to IE7 are given.
A sister Web site devoted entirely to safety on the Internet