Maintaining Your Privacy While Using Your Home PC
Published by Fred at June 23rd, 2009The Internet has brought us many great services, new methods of contact, and access to products and services. With all of the good aspects there are of course some bad, such as the fact that other computer users can compromise your privacy. With the right tools at your fingertips, you can protect against such actions.
Cookies are used in web development to store information about a user. It’s useful for a login feature that remembers your log in details, for instance. Cookies can also be used to track the websites you visit and other vital information you wouldn’t want to share with just anyone. Cookies can be manually deleted, but having a program do so at regular intervals is easier. In addition, such programs are free or inexpensive.
Have you ever been to a website, only to find that the website could offer you services or products based on where you live, and you had not even told them such information? Websites can determine the general area in which you live simply by logging your IP address and doing a simple look up process. Luckily you can combat this tool of learning your location through hiding your IP address via certain programs.
Using a wireless Internet connection poses risk to computer owners. Since other users are on the same network, they can employ tactics to gain access to your computer either through security holes or through social engineering. Either way you can protect yourself with network security programs that detect intrusions as they happen, defending your computer from harm in the process.
Public computers are the biggest threats to one’s security in privacy. Even if the connection you are using is secure, the data you leave behind for others to see after you leave the computer might not be. Websites will keep temporary Internet files on the host computer so that load times on websites is drastically reduced. At the same time, this information can be used to see what websites you browse and what data you view. Erasing the data is important in such a case.
Security programs are also making use of what is called stealth ports. This mode of security simply takes the ports of one’s computer and hides them from pings. For those who aren’t computer savvy, this essentially means that the connections you have with other computers will only be open when they need to be. This safeguards your computer against anyone trying to see if you have security holes to exploit.
Closing Comments
From here you can look online for security software, both free and paid, that can take care of the security topics mentioned above. The software you pick doesn’t have to come through trial and error. Instead, you can read online reviews to find the good picks.
Learn more about TrueCrypt and Hotspot Shield.