Attention Members of the dark side. The Evil emperor has given you a gift

So do you use Microsoft Windows? Do you want to help stop your system from being hacked or getting a virus? If you use Windows 7, Vista, XP then Microsoft is offering you free software called Microsoft Security Essentials all you have to do is download and install it and yes it's free!

Change your default web browser

After you install Microsoft Security Essentials you should download and start using FireFox or Google Chrome even Safari as your default web browser.

Lock down Internet Explorer

After you have your new web browser installed launch your copy of Internet Explorer. Just launch if it's in the tray, or you use Windows Update, however it is you get IE going. And then under the Internet Options icon, which generally most recently has looked like a little gear, you open that, go to the bottom line on the menu, which is Internet Options, and then choose the Security tab. That's where it shows you those zones. Now set your security to high. So you then need to, on the trusted zone, add *.windowsupdate.com and *.microsoft.com. So essentially what you've done is turned IE into a browser only useful for going to Microsoft and using Windows Update. You've also locked it down so that in Outlook there's no scripting and no permissions to run ActiveX controls and none of these things that are dangerous. So if you're going to view email, it's as safe as it could be using Outlook by having IE locked down.

Other Security issues

After Windows (remember Microsoft update is your friend) and Explorer hackers often get into your system via outdated Adobe software. So go and update your Adobe Acrobat reader and Adobe Flash software.