Most of us have experienced viruses, system lockups, spyware and spam...and it often gets in the way of our interest in serious genealogy. I'm writing this message because I wanted to share my experiences in hopes of you will not be discouraged when your computer gets in the way of pursuing your family history. I have spent the last two weekends completely reorganizing the way I access the Internet. My computer system is not state of the art--it doesn't have the fastest processor, though it has multiple reliable hard drives and plenty of memory. It was assembled to accomplish handle three of my interests--genealogy, photography and digital music, and it does a solid reliable job. It serves me well, and yours should too. So what did I do to protect it from the ravages of internet terrorism--spam, viruses, and spyware. A brief caveat--my experience is based on using Microsoft Windows, and not Linux or Mac OS. 1. Up to date operating system--kept up to date religiously, installing Windows XP Service Pack 2 as soon as it was available; since I have a broadband cable connection, I downloaded the whole thing. Most people will want to use the Windows Update (via Internet Explorer) feature to keep their operating system up to date, even if they use an older version of the operating system such as Windows 2000. Since I already have a hardware firewall (I use a router so two computers share an Internet connection), I initially disabled my software firewall (I use Computer Associates EZ Trust firewall, a slimmed down version of the free Zone Alarm firewall) to install XP Service Pack 2, which enables the WinXP firewall by default. That is better than nothing to protect a computer, but a configurable software firewall is preferable, so I disabled the XP SP2 firewall, and re-enabled my EZ Trust Firewall. Then I re-ran all the security checks using Steve Gibson's tests (www.grc.com). My machines are thus protecting from incoming and outgoing disruptions. 2. Readily updated anti-virus programs. You know you should have them, but do you. There are free and commercial antivirus programs available, and these will help protect your computer and the spread of viruses to others. So install an antivirus program, and keep it up to date. You'll do yourself, and others, a giant favor. 3. If you can, use an alternative browser to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. You'll need to keep IE to access the Windows Update feature, and some commercial web sites require its use, but there are alternative browsers such as Opera and Mozilla. I use a slimmer version of Mozilla--called Firefox--and have incorporated features to make it work like IE, only better. See www.firefoxie.net for a useful configuration. I believe this browser setup to be more secure. 4. Using e-mail programs--I use Eudora for some e-mail accounts, and Outlook 2003 for others. My Eudora account is only to download e-mail from my e-mail account as my local cable company, and I use that program's filter rules to get rid of unsolicited e-mail (I get only about 10 messages a day to that address, so it isn't super critical. But my main accounts at my domain greencity.org are the subject of massive amounts of e-mail, including spam, spoofed messages ostensibly sent from my domain, and virus-laden missives, so I have had to take serious, concerted efforts to rid myself of these headaches. What have I done? I am currently using three spam filtering programs. One is installed right in Outlook--called Qurb--which categorizes all mail reaching my accounts based on its content, and filtering messages it considered spam. But I wanted a way to reject messages and never have them enter my e-mail program. So I paid for a year to try Spam Arrest, a commercial program that sets up a challenge-response system forcing those who wish to send me e-mail to confirm their addresses (which most spammers won't do). That works great, except that it doesn't work consistently enough, in my opinion, and I'll probably stop using this program when my trial year is up. What I have decided to do, is install a similar product--ChoiceMail One--which allows me to maintain complete control of the white and black list because the software is installed on my personal computer to process the mail, so I'm not subject to external services such as Spam Arrest (which has its own mail servers to filter the mail). That may prove to be the most reliable in my fight against spam. 5. Shielding my e-mail address on web site pages; I've converted those to GIF images that can't be read by spam-bots (programs that harvest e-mail addresses from web pages). 6. I also routinely run software to check and eliminate what is know as "spyware." I use both Spybot Search and Destroy amd Adaware on a weekly basis to eliminate programs and internet junk. My system is also protected by a software program that prevents my browser's initial, that is, home page, from being reset to some other page. No computer arrangement is completely 100% secure, but with these things done (which took the better part of a couple of days), I feel I've protected my system as best as I can short of pulling the plug on my Internet connnection. And, of course, I couldn't do that and work on these genealogy mailing lists or web sites (more on the latter in a subsequent e-mail). ************* Doug Detling - Please change your address book to list me as: doug.detling@greencity.org