I get these questions often, so I thought it might be helpful to start a FAQ that I can keep updated online. This advice is for PC users. If you have a Mac you might be better served visiting this site, and if you’re running Linux then you definitely don’t need my help.
General Advice
1. Always have Anti-Virus installed and running.
2. Tell Windows to update itself automatically. Learn how to do that here.
3. Do not click on Email/Facebook/Twitter links sent to you from people you don’t know. Ever.
4. Backup your files.
Keep reading for more specific advice…
Anti-Virus
Use Microsoft Security Essentials. It is free and it works just as well as the ones you pay for. You can download it here from Microsoft.
The non-free solutions like McAfee, Norton, Trend Micro, Kaspersky or ESET work okay too (ESET would be my choice if I went with a paid option), so if you’ve already paid for one of them then you’re fine. Just remember that most new computers come with a free trial of paid anti-virus, so at some point it’s going to stop working if you don’t give them a credit card number. When that does happen, just uninstall that program and go get MSE for free.
(To uninstall a program you usually go to your Start Menu, then Control Panel, then look for “Add/Remove Programs” or “Uninstall a Program”)
Browser
Your browser is the program you use to view web pages. Your computer most likely came with Internet Explorer on it, which is the little blue “e” icon on your desktop. Internet Explorer has had a lot of problems in the past, and even though they’ve been working hard to make improvements lately, you can do MUCH better than Internet Explorer.
Use Chrome. You can download it here for free from Google. It’s easy and super-fast. Did I mention it was free?
Your browser is kind of like a car; they’ll all take you to the same website but the way you like to roll might not be the same way that I like to roll. So if you don’t like the way Chrome looks or feels, you have lots of other options to try. Firefox, Opera, and Safari are three more very good and very free alternatives to the broken-down beater that is Internet Explorer.
(Note to my co-workers: Internet Explorer is required for remote access to our company network, unfortunately, so don’t completely uninstall IE if you ever plan to “web desktop” back to the office.)
Microsoft Office
MS Office works just fine, but it’s really expensive and I don’t like paying for things that are really expensive.
Use LibreOffice instead. It’s a great free alternative to MS Office. LibreOffice will let you open Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc files and edit them, as well as create new files.
File Backups
Please backup your files. Think about what’s on your computer. Sure, you can reinstall a program if your computer crashes. But what about all those songs you bought from iTunes? Or the pictures you took on your last vacation? Or all those recipes you’ve spent the last 6 months typing up? Would it be a big deal if your computer crashed and those files disappeared?
Of course it would, so backup your files. It doesn’t matter how you do it; choose whichever option you think you can stick to. You can burn the files to a CD or DVD and stick that in a drawer. Or buy an external hard drive from Amazon and copy your files to that. Or use an online service like SOS or Carbonite. At least do something.