How to make windows safer, facebook

If you want to be safe from viruses, don't use Windows Operating system. 
Use Linux: Linuxmint or Ubuntu.
Or an Apple Mac computer. (Apple is kind of expensive)

Facebook

Don't add people you do not know to your list. They will survive without it.
Don't write status messages like: Out of town for a weekend, or a week, or a month.
Some of your "friends" might see it and decide to rob your house.
Make sure your e-mail is hidden to your non friends:
On your facebook page, click on "Account/Privacy" menu on the right.
"Customize settings" on the lower middle of the page.

Set "Posts by me" to "Everyone".
"Interested in and looking for" also to "Everyone" if you want to.
Disable "Include me in 'People Here Now' after I check in".


All others set to "friends only"
Why?

The easiest way for someone to hack your facebook is to find your e-mail address on facebook,
go to it's page, use I forgot my pass, and gain access to it. After that they can use that mail to 
get your facebook page, and your account is hacked.


If that happens though, you can still try this:
http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=420
http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=1011
http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=174#!/help/?page=1023

Also, you can ask your friends to report your hacked account.


Congratulations. You have just won ...

If you have received e-mail you have won a lot of money, trip to Bahamas, or something else you have 
never played, you probably haven't won anything. Sorry.
Especially if they ask you to send some money first.

If you actually have won, and received tickets, make sure you ask some of your reliable friends to watch over,
or move into your house during the weekend. Why? 
Cause you might find your house cleaned when you come back.

There is also a scam when someone asks you to send him/her money,
from your friends hacked (facebook) account.
Try to contact person by phone, or ask him what you had for dinner the other night.


Unwanted e-mail/Spam

Open another e-mail account on Yahoo or Hotmail, which you will only use to register on 
sites that require registration. Reason? They usually send you a ton of spam.

If you use Google, you can register on some web site with john+somesite@gmail.com.
It will still arrive at john@gmail.com, but it can see who supplied them with e-mail address,
and filter it.
They might figure that out and send you to john@gmail.com, though.

Use your username instead of john, obviously.


Public computers

If you use Internet on public computers use private mode:
Firefox Mozilla: Go to menu: Tools/Start Private Browsing
Google Chrome: Wrench icon/New incognito window
Opera: Menu/tabs and windows/new private tab

Do not use Internet Explorer.

If you can not use private mode, remember to click logout or sign out on web site,
and to delete history, and cookies from browser.
Firefox Mozilla: Go to menu: Tools/Clear recent history. Everything, select everything.
Google Chrome: Wrench icon/options/under the hood/clear browsing data. Select all, and Everything.
Opera: Menu/settings/clear private data. Detailed options, select all. Delete.
Internet explorer: Tools/Internet Options/Delete cookies (OK), Delete files (Offline too), Clear History (yes).


If you want to use pc for some e-banking, make sure you do not have viruses or keyloggers.
Try to use your computer, and not public for something as sensitive as money transfers.
Scan PC with anti virus, regularly. 
Use Mozilla Firefox, Opera or Chrome in private mode. If not make sure you delete cookies and 
history before and after use of e-banking.

Or boot computer from Linuxmint cd, or Ubuntu cd, and use internet e-banking from there.

Passwords
DO NOT allow browser to save passwords for your profiles.
They can easily be read from view passwords option in browser. (Mozilla at least)

Do not use the same password for all sites. Try to incorporate part of the name of the site 
you are visiting in the password, if you cannot remember totally different password for each
site.

You can use http://keepass.info/ which will save all your
passwords into 1 encrypted file. But the master password should be strong, at least 8 letters,
capital letters, and small letters, and numbers.

NEVER give your password to anyone, or write it in a mail to ANYONE.

Do not use same password as user name. Do not use following:
password, 123, 123456, qwerty,your name, last name, mother name, brother/sister, daughter,
son name, birthday of the any of the above including your own.
Your favorite sport, athlete, group, actor, etc. Anything that is your favorite.

Do not choose "Your secret question" and answer that can be easily guessed, or something your
friends know. Like your birth town, birthday, etc.

Don't write passwords on piece of paper and leave it near your computer.
Some more info here, and here



Viruses, disable autorun from usb key

Why? Cause when people put infected USB stick in your computer, it can autorun and
infect your computer too.


-create dir autorun.inf on your usb memory/stick
This will hopefully disable creating autorun.inf file by virus.

-You can also keep shift key pressed when you insert unknown/other people's usb stick in computer. 
It will prevent autorun.



-How to disable autorun from usb key:
Windows xp: Click on start/run, type "gpedit.msc"
Go to computer configuration/administrative templates/system
turn off autoplay
double click
set it to enabled, all drives

Again, go to User configuration/administrative templates/system
turn off autoplay
double click
set it to enabled, all drives

-Windows xp: Install update from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967715
Here is a direct link to a file


(Windows xp home:


Since Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) is not available in XP Home, you'll have to change an entry in the registry to disable autoplay.
Click the Start button the click Run
type in cmd then press the enter key
In the Command windows that opens, type regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer
Change the decimal value of NoDriveTypeAutoRun to 181
Close regedit
Restart the computer

Vista:
Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Play CDs or other media automatically
At the top, uncheck "Use Autoplay for all media and devices"
Click the Save button
both methods are from http://cvibes.net/computers/DisableAutoPlay.html)

Windows vista/7
Start/Control Panel/Hardware and Sound/Autoplay
Uncheck "Use AutoPlay"
Click on Save at the bottom


(Alternative method:
Click on start/run, type "gpedit.msc"
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Autoplay Policies
double click on Turn off Autoplay
set it to enabled, all drives

Same for "User Configuration")
 
 
Fake web sites
 
-Do not use Internet explorer for surfing the Internet. Use mozilla firefox, opera, chrome or safari.
Basically, anything other than Internet explorer, and ie based browser.

-Do not enter your username and password, your mobile phone number and mobile company or your phone number
If you get request to do so in e-mail. No company ever ask you for that info in an an e-mail.
If you feel have to do it, contact the company by phone. First check if the phone number is 
correct, by going through the phone listing, or to the web site (less secure).

You might get link in e-mail that looks like this:
New virus discovered. Login to your facebook site to delete it now. 
Login here: http://www.facebook.com/

Notice the difference in the status bar (at the bottom of your browser)?
When you move mouse over link it migh point to another address.
Just like in the link above.

Nevertheless this link might take you to the site that looks just like the real site.
Except for the different address in the address bar.
IT IS FAKE.


ALWAYS look in the address bar of your browser.

http://www.facebook.com and http://www.facebook.net might not be the same company.

http://facebook.aaak.com is probably fake, and dangerous. The real name of the server 
is not facebook. It is aaak.com. (This is just an example.)

Also sometimes fake adress is http://facebook.com.something.2340990ffsdF90xcvv?fake.address.com
fake.address.com is actual server name, not facebook.com
Another example is fake paypal site (paypal.something.com), or yahoo mail.

Secure Web Sitess

Every respectable site that requires username and password has secure server login.
Displayed by using https, not just http in address.
Paypal, yahoo mail, gmail, facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/
https://www.paypal.com/
https://login.yahoo.com/
https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=mail

If s part if verified properly you will see an icon:

-Firefox mozilla: Name of the real serever, displayed with different color. 
When you move mouse over it it will say "Verified by Verisign"

-Google Chrome: Yellow background of an address bar. Icon of a lock, 
tooltip "Secure connection to www.google.com"

-Opera: yellow part of an address bar, with google.com (name of the server). 
Lock has checkbox on it.



Antivirus

-Use antivirus. There are free antiviruses for windows: avira, avast, avg.
and some others that dont start in a :)

Note: No antivirus is 100 percent safe.

If your computer ends up with virus anyway here are some tips:
try combofix, superantispyware, Avira AntiVir Rescue System, Kaspersky Rescue CD. More here.

If all else fails, backup data to another partition or disk, or usb stick.
If you cannot start windows, try booting with linux cd. Make sure 1st device in
boot sequence is cd/dvd. (Enter bios with DEL key.)

Reinstall windows.

Or ask your friend to do this for you.



E-mail attachments

-Serious companies do not send e-mail from yahoo e-mail account, or any other than their real
domain, like name@company.com. Beware, this can be forged easily in an e-mail.


-If you have any suspicion, use Google to find about name of the sender of the mail, or 
the company. Pay attention to words like: hoax, fraud, etc.


-Do not use Microsoft outlook or outlook express for e-mail. Use Thunderbird.
Internet explorer is not resilient to viruses.

Do not open attachments directly from e-mail application. Save it to disk, scan it with
antivirus. DO NOT OPEN file ending in .exe. Those are programs, executable files.
There is no reason anyone, especially anyone you do not know would send you an .exe file.

Beware when accepting gifts from strangers. Do not do it.

Use your head.
If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

-Do not open links from mail informing you won money/car/trip to Malibu from games you never
participated in.

-Do not open links or programs from e-mails from people you do not know, and or have never contacted with.
-Do not open mails with the similar subject: Hi, I sent you requested file.


Fake images and fake zip files
-Sometimes executable file (.exe) is hidden inside compressed file. (.zip)
Sometimes file looks like an image but has an extension exe. Like this:
mypicture.jpg.exe. Thanks to stupidity in windows, extensions for known file types are hidden by default.

You can disable this: 

Windows XP: 
Double click on My Computer. Go to "tools/folder options"
Uncheck "hide extensions for known file types".

Vista:
1. Double click on Computer
2. Click the Layout button (to the left of the Views button)
3. Click Folder Options
4. Click the View tab
5. Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types
6. Click OK
(from http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1269/vista_show_unhide_file_extensions/)

Windows 7

1. Open Windows Explorer, you can do this by opening up any folder or you can just click Start > User Name.
2. Click “Organize”, scroll down and click “Folder and search options”.
3. Click the “View” tab. Scroll down until you see “Hide extensions for known file types”, un-check this line here by clicking on the check box.
4. Click “OK” and now your file extensions will now longer be hidden.
(from http://askabouttech.com/how-to-show-file-extension-in-windows-7/)



Toolbars

When installing programs, uncheck option to install toolbars. Some of the well known
are: Google toolbar, ask.com, bearshare, yahoo.com
You DO NOT NEED any of these ... things.

File sharing programs

Do not install bearshare.
If you have to have some file sharing program then use some of these. Their source files are available, so
they are unlikely to have viruses, malware or some other crap.
-shareaza FROM http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/, NOT shareaza.com
-frostware, http://www.frostwire.com/
-utorrent, http://www.utorrent.com/
Don't download .exe files, and disable "hide extensions" options in Windows:
Open "My Computer" go to menu "Folder options/View/Hide extensions for known file types"

Use your head! 
If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.