Muppet security questions

[closetleftie]

OK, I has got this new Samsung NC10. Great b it of kit, FWIW.

Procedure once I started it up went soemthing like this:

1. McAfee came pre-loaded.

2. Go on't interweb

3. Download AVG free, CCleaner and Spybot S&D from filehippo. Accept default settings.

4. Uninstall Mcafee and run S&D. Fix 9 problems wot it found. Crikey where did those come from?

Will this do, oh techno-gods?

PS: now have toolbars of avg and ccleaner taking up screenspace. No worries on my 17" laptop, but a pain on this one. Can I remove the toolbars without affecting the program integrity? And how do I do it?

Thanks and sorry for the stupid questions...

[closetleftie]

And clearly my typing on the smaller keyboard still needs work...

[Craig]

Make sure you have a firewall running (the XP one is pretty good, and should be enabled as standard).
Make sure Windows is up date.
Make sure the rest of your software is up to date and patched - I find this very useful: Vulnerability Scanning - Secunia.com Download and run the personal version, and it'll will tell you if anything needs patched.
Avoid using Internet Explorer.

[PrettyBoyTim]

You should be able to remove the toolbars without altering the efficacy of the programs.

[fuzzy]

Click 'view' then 'toolbars' on the top line (dunno what it is called) and uncheck the ones you want to get rid of.

[nuovo_record]

Avoid using Internet Explorer.

find mozilla firefox works well
zonealarm is you fancy a good free firewall

[woollypigs]

Done that on all the windows machines I have set up for myself or others. I also install FireFox, and after that I have had no problems with any trojan's or virus's.

Unless the user by themselves installed one, which one friend did.