PC Security

You never know what you'll find when you're surfing around. That's the fun part. Sometimes it's funny, gross or just super cool stuff.

Sometimes what I find isn't so fun. I've learned not to open files that come from people I don't know in email, because sometimes those have viruses that can mess up my computer. I also used to visit lots of different web sites, but then I couldn't do anything without tons and tons of ads popping up for things I'd really rather not think about. Other times it can be something that makes me feel uncomfortable. When that happens I make sure I tell my parents or a trusted adult.

My whole family used the computer and not that I care about my older brother but if he messes up the machine then I can't use it either. So we've learned that there are things we can do to protect our computer. Here's what we do:

• Make sure that you have a firewall running. Think of a firewall as a moat around a castle. It keeps bad people from getting into our computer.
• Keep the computer up to date. We turned on automatic updates and now, whenever there is a problem, our operating system gets the latest to take care of itself.
• Use anti-virus and anti-spyware programs and we keep those up to date too. Each of them is different, so make sure you know how they work.

I talk about these things with my folks. It's more fun than coming up with excuses for not doing my homework and, when it comes to using the computer, I feel like I'm the expert.