Quick Setup Guides

Get yourself quickly set up so that your computer is more secure and safe.

Yes, this page is long.

a) it's mostly cos of the screenshots;

b) internet safety is complicated!

Inside your computer

Read detailed information in the section dedicated to software inside your computer:

Inside your computer

Firewall

Learn more details on 📄Firewalls.

Choose a firewall application.

I recommend SimpleWall Download and Binisoft MalwareBytes Windows Firewall Control.

Download 🌐SimpleWall
Download 🌐Binisoft MalwareBytes Windows Firewall Control

(I actually use both at the same time.)

Install the firewall.

Activate the firewall.

SimpleWall firewall

SimpleWall is fairly simple.

It allows you to block all of Microsoft's spying and telemetry on your computer.

I have it set to block ALL connections by default. Then it will pop up a notification each time an app/process tries to create a new connection.

Don't forget to click Enable filters!!! This activates the SimpleWall firewall.

I had some trouble with SimpleWall at first, I guess because the pop-up notifications weren't appearing 🤷

I allowed a bunch of system processes through the firewall at random (educated guesses) until the internet connection was working again.

Hopefully you won't run into this issue. If you do, search the internet for tips — you can probably find some guidance on 🌐 SimpleWall's intro guide too.

MalwareBytes firewall

MalwareBytes firewall is not set to block everything by default.

Switch to the Profiles tab and set it to Medium Filtering (recommended).

Do not set it to High Filtering unless you want to completely sever your computer from the internet.

Also check the Automatically set Medium Filtering after X minutes.

Go to the Notifications tab and set it to Display Notifications. This will ensure that you get a pop-up notification for every application (including system processes) that attempts to connect to the internet.

If you are concerned that some virus or malware might be connecting to the internet during boot-up, go to the Security tab and enable Secure Boot.

Finally, return to the Dashboard tab to check the firewall status — it should look like this:

And that should be enough!

I actually have both SimpleWall and Binisoft MalwareBytes firewall running. I don't know if it's necessary, but it gives me some peace of mind knowing that every process has to get through two firewalls in order to connect to the internet.

Block OS Telemetry

We already achieved this with 🌐SimpleWall in the # Firewall section.

Learn more details on 📄Blocking OS telemetry.

Antivirus

Learn more details on 📄Antivirus apps.

Choose an antivirus application.

I recommend Kaspersky and MalwareBytes.

I mainly recommend Kaspersky, but you need to keep creating a new account every 30 days, or you can just pay for it.

Windows Security does a decent job too, but it isn't perfect. Use it alongside another app.

Download 🌐Kaspersky — (compare their plans)
Download 🌐MalwareBytes

Register for a Kaspersky account if you choose that. I do recommend it because it's the only antivirus app that managed to find the ransomware malware hiding in my RAM.

Install the antivirus software.

Kaspersky has a more-involved setup procedure because you have to sign in to your account.

Run the antivirus scans.

Most antivirus apps have a "quick scan" and a "full scan".

You should run both.

Start with the "quick scan" because that will scan the most likely locations that a virus is hanging out, and it will find it quickly if it is there.

Then run a "full scan". This will scan everything but it will take ages.

Windows Security — double check it

If you are using Windows, go into your Windows Security application.

Double check your scan settings — one virus that I recently had had set Windows Security's antivirus scanning to exclude the entire system C: drive from its scans! The virus was able to go undetected because of this.