This is a general Guide for internet security. It will cover everything from encryption to firewalls. Some of it may seem obvious but you'd be surprised how many people ignore or don't know some of the basic guide lines.

Firewalls and Anti-Virus:

1.Turn off windows built in firewall. It's very inefficient and can cause problems when you try to run other firewall and anti viruses software. This can be done by going to start > Control Panel > Security Center > Click Windows Firewall under Manage Your Security Settings, then select off, and your done.


2.Obtain a good firewall and viruses kit. I personally recommend Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite. Although McAfee Anti Virus and Firewall is also a good choice. I would recommend however that you DO NOT under any circumstances use Norton. Norton tends to cause all sorts of problems with various software.

3. Get some good spy ware removal software. If you are going to use Zone Alarm or McAfee then these already have the spy ware software built in so you don't need to worry about this section. If you are not using either of these then it is still most likely that your Anti-Virus software will contain some form of spy-ware removal software. If it doesn't a good program is Ad – Aware by Lavasoft, or Spyware Doctor.

4.Get some extra software for things that your standard anti – virus might not be able to cope with such as Rootkits. A good tool for these is UnHackMe.

5.ALWAYS regularly update all your software. Anti – virus software that isn't updated is useless.

6.ALWAYS run regular scans for both virus's and spy ware. Personally I run scans once a day, but you can run them once and week and they will still be effective. Anything over a week is very bad practice. A happy medium is to run them three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday for example.

Website Browsing:

The first rule about website browsing in almost definitely DO NOT give out any information to a website you don't trust. The trick is learning how to trust a website. This will be cover in the following points.

1.Try to only go on sites, you know and trust. Now obviously there will be times you need to go on sites you don't know. So as a general rule if you Google something (for the purpose of this guide I'm using Google as an example, merely because it's the most popular. There are plenty other search engines that are just as good. ) then only go on the sites listed on the first page. Anything after the first search page is usually so far removed from the topic you typed in anyway it's useless.

2.If the site wasn't from Google, when you first go on it, look for contact details. It could be anything address, phone number, email. If it there is an email address send a sort email to it and see if it bounces. If there is a phone number try phoning it (assuming its in your country otherwise your phone bill will sky rocket). Although having said this you only really need to do this on sites you will be submitting personal information to, or that you will be downloading heavily from.

3.Next is the rule of 4. If you are on a site, (Known or Unknown) try not to link out of it more than 4 times. This means try not to following a link from it, then from that site, and the next so and and so forth.

4.If you are submitting financial information always look for the padlock symbol at the bottom right of the browser. If you put your mouse over it, most of the time it will tell you the encryption level. Absolute minimum should be 128 bit. This is the standard.

6.An excellent idea is to create a hotmail account for signing up to any site your unsure about or for the purpose of posting in forums. For example I have three email address's the one with my ISP for official stuff, a hotmail account for friends and family to contact me on, and dixie_flatline@hotmail.co.uk to posting on forums, and websites.


Encryption:

1.Encryption simple to use, hard to understand. If you want to understand to basic behind it here is a good link http://computer.howstuffworks.com/encryption.htm

2.If you want to encrypt files on your hard drive to protect them for hackers, over interested parents, or whoever, the best software I would recommend is Kruptos 2. It's a free piece of software, and uses a 256 bit key, as well as scrambling the file name. All you have to do is enter a password. You can get more complicated software that not only uses a password but a key file as well this means that to de – crypt the file you need both the password and the key file. This is designed so that you can for example keep the key file on a floppy and carry it with you, then just pop the floppy in when you want to de – crypt. A good piece of free software for this is TrueCrypt, although I would not recommend using this unless you know your way around encryption and computers.

IP/Proxy:

1.An IP address is a unique address given to your computer by your ISP or Internet Service Provider. IP stands for Internet Protocol Address.

2.When you proxy your computer you go through some other computer or server to make it look like your coming from somewhere else. As standard most computers will go through at least 3 or 4 servers before hitting the net, some as many as ten.

3.If you find a Elite proxy server when you connect to the net you will be effectively invisible. You can get software to do this for you, but it is usually very expensive, so a simpler way to do it is to find a fast reliable sever, (not as easy as it sounds), then if your using FireFox go to Tools > Options > Advanced > Settings. Then tick the box that says Manual Proxy Configuration. Now take the IP address and connecting port of the server and enter it into the http box and tick the box that says Use This Server For All Protocols. However if the server isn't a HTTP protocol, (possibly Sock4 or Sock5) then enter it in the respective boxes.

Footnote:

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol.

The Rule Of 4 mentioned into point 3, is only a guideline. It works because when you visit a site that you trust (Darkside for example) you know you are relativly safe for virus's but when you link away from that 4 or more times you can no longer guarentee the safty of the site you are on. You can link away more if you wish just be careful when you do.



Any comments, alternations, or query's please PM


The_Flatline guides can only be found on Darkside RG, if you find them anywhere else please PM me.




Visit my other guides.

How To Install Windows

How To Build A PC

EDITED: This guide was edited to add instructions for turning off Windows Firewall.

Thanks alot :)

you just introduced me to incryption and what "IP" stands for :)

great help,

thanks again

great guide
thanks

thanks a very helpful guides for people who surf the net.

Thank you, your guide has been a great help to me,

Obtain a good firewall and viruses kit. I personally recommend Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite. Although McAfee Anti Virus and Firewall is also a good choice. I would recommend however that you DO NOT under any circumstances use Norton. Norton tends to cause all sorts of problems with various software.
Norton seeems to cause me the least trouble out of all the anti-virus proggrams.Hardly no false positives. I know it uses a lot of system resources, but have tried most of them and their either stopping programs I want ,like crack files, or to much work trying to figure them out. Using Nod right now, its not bad but still seems to delete files I want. But hey I dont know anything. Thanks for the guide.Will study some more. Darkside is the BEST