The Download is Free, but is it Safe?

Everyone is so worried about practicing safe sex, but rarely do you hear the same concern about safe downloads. Software viruses can be killers too. The sad truth is that when you browse the web, many websites now download pieces of software to track your browsing habits. These programs or cookies can degrade the performance of your pc and at times even crash the entire system. Some of this can be avoided by using Firefox as a browser which has better protections against trojans than other browsers, but some spyware comes bundled with free applications you innocently download off the net. The browser cannot block these since the user has chosen to download and execute a program they might think is perfectly safe.

I am all for free software, but I certainly don't want free viruses too! What can we do to protect our personal computers from intrusive and potentially damaging spyware?

1. Always download off a trusted web site. One that is used by many people and that is aware of the dangers of spyware.

2. Always use some sort of virus protection on your machine. If you don't want to pay, you can use McAfee FreeScan but in this case, paying will provide you with better protection.

3. Download the free McAfee Site Advisor too. It provides information on the safety of the sites you browse and also puts their own safety ranking next to Google search results.

4. Before you download any product, make sure to read the comments on it first. Others may have tried to download it and it either didn't work, or it caused other problems on their machine. Read and learn.

5. Download only if it appears to be a popular product and well rated.

6. Use Firefox as your choice of browser for the added trojan protection.

7. Keep backups of your machine files in case it crashes.

Other ways to hedge your bets that the download is a clean copy and not infected with something bad, is to use download communities that are trusted by the public.

Here is a list of some of them:

www.download.com: This is a community that includes for pay and free software downloads. It is touted as "spyware-free." It includes downloads for music, software, and games.

www.tucows.com: This site includes a large selection of software shareware downloads for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh computers. It also has reviews of the software available to read for free.

www.sourceforge.net: This community contains a lot of Open Source programs. It hosts over 100,000 projects. Being Open Source the software may be a little trickier to install than executable programs for Windows, but some are well worth the download.

As odd as it may seem, some of the best free downloads are at places that sell their products commercially. Microsoft offers a large selection of free templates and databases for their Excel, Word, and Access products. Just go to their main page at www.microsoft.com and use the downloads link to find a wide variety of free and safe downloads for Office products.