Hardware, Software, Malware

What is Malware? Here is what Wikipedia says:

"Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. It is a mix of the words "malicious" and "software". The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code."

The variety of hostlile, intrusive or annoying software includes: worms, viruses, trojan horses, spyware, bad adware etc.

How can you prevent your computer from being damaged by malware?

1. You MUST have an Anti-Virus tool
2. The Anti-Virus must cover your E-mail and Chat too
3. Have a firewall turned on
4. Use McAfee SiteAdvisor to keep you out of bad sites on the net
5. Use a non-administrator account for email and browsing.
6. Do Not Download from unpopular/unfamiliar sites. If you are looking for freeware or shareware versions of popular programs, stick to tucows.com, downloads.zdnet.com and download.com.