Product Description

Swat spam, vanquish viruses, knock down pop-ups, and expose spyware with help from this one-of-a-kind resource. Loaded with insightful advice, practical tips, and trial software, this book-and-CD defense will help you rid your computer of the perils and nuisances of Web surfing once and for all. Author and tech expert Ken Feinstein gives easy-to-understand explanations of the technologies at work, and just exactly what steps you can take to take back your e-mail, your surfing enjoyment, your privacy, and your computer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #682317 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 234 pages

Review
It’s comprehensive, it’s clearly written and illustrated, and, most of all, the advice is right on the money. -- Chicago Tribune, Tech.Buzz, October 16, 2004

From the Back Cover

Get expert advice on finally ridding your computer of annoying spam and pop-up ads and invasive viruses, spyware, and adware. You’ll discover where these electronic nuisances originate, how they work, and how to prevent them. Learn to choose spam-resistant e-mail addresses and get the most from your spam filter. Protect your computer from virus attacks with antivirus software and preventive measures. Also, find out how to avoid unknowingly installing spyware and adware, and block those pesky pop-up ads. The bonus CD-ROM features trial versions of the prevention tools covered in the book.

• Understand how spammers operate and how to safeguard your e-mail addresses
• Use spam-filtering software and challenge-response mail systems
• Configure your PC to resist virus attacks
• Recognize virus-laden emails and avoid virus infection when downloading files
• Install, configure, and update antivirus software
• Diagnose and remove viruses from your system
• Avoid inadvertently installing adware and spyware
• Learn about dialers and manage Internet cookies
• Use spyware utilities and firewalls to protect your system
• Block pop-ups and other annoying advertisements
• Get details on the virus- and spyware-fighting features of Windows XP Service Pack 2

About the author: Ken Feinstein has been writing about computers and gadgets for more than five years. His work has appeared in Computer Shopper, CNET, ZDNet, Computer Gaming World, and Future Networks’ EZ Tech Guides.

About the Author
McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Customer Reviews

Useful Tips To Help Keep Your PC Pest Free
There is no question that the pests addressed in this book are a significant threat to the everyday functionality of computers. This is particularly true of home users who don't have the benefit of a network security administrator to implement and maintain a perimeter firewall and ensure that antivirus detection is kept up to date.

Home users generally think of the computer as an appliance. They don't want to know more than they have to in order to use it for its intended purpose. They aren't trying to become computer security experts any more than they want to understand the physics behind how the microwave oven works.

Unfortunately, you can use a microwave oven without understanding the physics, but at least a rudimentary understanding of the threats out there and how to protect your computer or network from them are required to effectively use the computer.

Feinstein does a good job of explaining what the threats are and why you are at risk, and then providing the reader with fairly simple instructions to help shield the computer from that threat and protect your data and your network bandwidth so you can use the computer as you intended.

This is a good resource for a home user trying to learn about protecting their PC

(...)

Remove the trash and keep what you need.
Anyone who has been around computers lately can tell you that spyware, pop-up, adware and other assorted infections is enough to drive you right up the wall. Trying to remove all the problems could become a full time occupation. How does one combat all these nasty problems and still have the computer up and running?

Having spent that last several months working on a spyware lockdown, this book has provided some very important information for me to the project. The book does give you a great deal of interesting reading that is written for just about all levels of comprehension.

The author has given you a number of ways to configure, install, setup and troubleshoot the various ways to block spyware, spam, the ever annoying pop-ups and even viruses. What this book does is lay out a way for the reader to first take in the concepts and then try it out. As always you need to make sure you have a backup of the system you will be working.

The book does come with a cd that has several demos and even a couple of freeware utilities, although the Spybot and Ad-Aware are out of date since the printing, they are still useful and best of all free. Overall the book does a good job of informing the user without being over technical and if you are new to computers this might be a good pickup to see what you are in for.

Feel safe again online
As someone who's been dealing with a lot of spam and spyware problems lately, I found this to be an invaluable book. Feinstein really knows his stuff and offers lots of great info and practical advice, suggestions, etc. It comes w/ a CD-ROM too, which is a nice plus. Highly recommended for anyone having trouble with spam, spyware, viruses, and pop-ups. Read it and you'll feel safer about your online life.