It’s enough to make your computer sick. You’re surfing along and the next thing you know you are pummeled with popups for everything from free vacations to fake university degrees and “You’re a Winner!” The more you try to click them off, the more they keep popping up. Finally, you give up and go watch TV, vowing to “do something” about it tomorrow. For those who want to, but don’t know what to do, I present my favorite non-technical guide to fighting this “junkware.”

Patrick Douglas Crispen of Netsquirrel.com (he publishes a free newsletter, The Internet Tourbus) has put together a fine set of articles on home computer security. I highly recommend them. Here are the links to everything you need.

Part One: Exploits and Patch Management

Part Two: Firewalls

Part Two and a half: Odds and Ends

Part Three: Testing your Firewall

Part Four: Update your Antivirus

Part Five: Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer

I’ve also combined all of those posts into two giant presentations you
are free to download and burn in effigy. Just point your Web browser here and look for Home Computer Security and Privacy parts one and two.