The Security Mentor

I wrote a short list of advice in an earlier article about security for new computers. Randy Nash has a longer and more technical Home User Security Guide out today.

He's got good advice including the names of a couple of free antivirus programs with good reputations. I'd add Microsoft's antispyware program to his list of recommendations, because it catches things that Ad-Aware and Spybot miss.

My only reservation is where he recommends you protect yourself against phishing by installing a browser toolbar from Netcraft. First off, if you're doing things right you can't even install the Netcraft toolbar. It doesn't work with the web browser you should be using, Firefox. It only works with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Even I don't know of enough security tools to make Internet Explorer safe to use on the open web. Second, read the Netcraft privacy policy and see if you can live with it.