Your computer is a treasure trove of information about you and your lifestyle. More terrifying than that, it can be a hotbed of information about your children and they are far more likely to invite strangers into your online or computer-based lives. From identity theft to the sharing of private photos, there is a lot to fear from others who can access your files. And if you’re not already actively working to keep them out, now is the perfect time to get started. You certainly don’t want to wait any longer!

Clear Your Internet History

Your computer does an excellent job of recording all of the websites you’ve visited, and if you have some password and login information stored, a quick drop down menu in your internet browser can lead a thief right to your financial information.

If it’s there for the taking, it’s hard to imagine someone without scruples out there isn’t going to try and take it. Less severe, but even more embarrassing, your internet searches might reveal some rather interesting searches you’ve made to your children who use the computer after you. Make it a habit to clear your history and avoid any potentially embarrassing faux pas.

Clear Your Internet History in Internet Explorer

•    Close your Internet Explorer browsers before you open Control Panel.
•    Click on Internet Options.
•    Under General click on Clear History.
•    Click on Yes and OK to finish the process.

Clear Your Internet History in FireFox

If you’re working in Firefox, you’ll clear your internet history in the browser.
•    In the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button in the top left corner of the screen.
•    Move the cursor to History and then to Clear Recent History.
•    You’ll have your choice to clear recent things or everything. Make the choice that makes the most sense (probably everything) and select the Clear Now button that appears.

Clear Your Internet History in Chrome

To clean out your internet history in Chrome, you’ll stay in the browser and click on the wrench icon located on the toolbar.

•    Select Tools.
•    Click on Clear browsing data and then check the box that says Clear browsing history.
•    To delete all of your data, select beginning of time to remove everything and then click on Clear browsing data.

Enable a Firewall

A full security suite like McAfee or Norton will include virus detection software as well as a firewall. If you’re not comfortable with a suite of software you can buy a specialized firewall as well either by download or at a computer store. The firewall closes off the ports of your computer and defends you and your network from the big bad world out there.

It blocks quite a few bad downloads and malware attempts that might come through email or website downloads, which helps to protects you from yourself as well as keeping the bad guys away from the outside.

Use an Anti-Malware Scanner

Full security suites have a nice firewall in many cases, and they do a good job of keeping out malware and viruses, but there is a lot of material that has to be downloaded and updated constantly to keep the suite “in the know.”

Cloud anti-malware scanners are smaller and more nimble on your machine, and best of all, they are always updated because they communicate with a bigger server-bank to check security. You download less, you don’t have to deal with endless updates and the security is topnotch. Examples of cloud anti-malware scanners you’d want to consider include Panda Cloud Antivirus, Trend Micro Housecall 7.1, or Comodo Cloud Scanner.

Clean Your Hard Drive using Windows Disk Cleanup

There is plenty you don’t use on your computer and all of that junk is slowing things down and taking up space. Clean house by using Windows Disk Cleanup. To get started, go to the Start button, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and then Disk Cleanup.



You’ll have the choice to clean up your files or all of the files on the computer. Make your choice, enter a password if necessary. You’ll then be able to click on which drives you want to clean up before the actual cleansing will begin. You still get the final say in which files are deleted as the cleaning process goes along. Simply check off the ones you want to get rid of and the computer does all the rest.

Check Images

Who knows what gets downloaded to your machine when your kids are playing online. Hopefully you know what you’ve downloaded to your own hard drive, at least, but it can never hurt to check on the images you’ve put on your machine. After all, this is the first thing someone is going to do if they want to find your “hidden” collection of private pictures – especially the ones nobody is supposed to know you’ve taken or downloaded.

Go to Start and in the search box, type in the extensions for images like .jpeg, .gif, .png, or .bmp. You’ll pull up every picture on your computer that has each extension. Scan them to see if they are suitable to be that easily found, and strongly consider moving all images, especially family pictures that can’t be replaced, to a separate hard drive or flash drive you can hide or store safely.

Consider a Password Manager

You probably have countless passwords at this point, or you have a few that you use over and over again, which you’re not supposed to do technically, but it’s a fact of life. If we didn’t have help, we’d forget all of the passwords and be back in the dark ages of internet use. Enter the password manager. A password manager is an application that that remembers all of those passwords, organizes them and then automatically logs you into websites so that you don’t have to deal with the various entries on every site you visit.

The new cloud-based password managers combine and control your passwords online so that you can access them from your home computer, your work computer, your tablet and your phone as necessary. Some of the best reviewed password managers by PC World include 1Password, Clipperz, LastPass and RoboForm. You can learn more about the perks and benefits of the password managers in the extensive review found on the PC World website.

Privatize Your Online Existence

We’re very active online through social media, but many of your actions don’t have to be quite as social as they are now. You can make many things private online while still taking advantage of the convenience and service. For example, you can make a list through Amazon, the Amazon Wish List, and leave the list as a private. You don’t have to send it to anyone or let anyone search for you. Make it a rule that when presented with the opportunity to password protect something, protect it. You can always share it later.

If you’re given the option to share or “connect” you don’t have to do either on many services like Delicious or Google bookmarks. You don’t have to rank things or write reviews for others. You can opt out of many things while still being able to find your 1,437 favorite websites again when you want them. Keep an eye out for ways to privatize your experience as well as avoiding your location and the sharing of information. It will keep you and your computer clean, organized and – most importantly – safe.

Teach Others

If you have children or teens your household, consider it part of your role of parent to help them learn to stay safe and how to protect their information online by keeping the computer safe. The best firewall can’t protect against all user error, after all.

Show your children what to avoid when using the internet and don’t allow them to download pictures or programs that might work against all of your other efforts here. Consider a filter designed for children, but expect them to work at getting around it simply on principle. Make your children a part of your clean computer use and emphasize how important their safety is while actively monitoring their use to be sure they are using best practice as well.