Lots of good advice has been given here - some of what I do and I advise others to do:

1) Get good AV protection and keep it up to date daily

2) Same for Malware Bytes it helps with first-day attacks

3) Keep mail and browsers up to date and keep your security shields up on them - also stay away from the most popular apps for these - as bigger targets get more attacks

4) Back up every day on an external drive and keep at least 7 backups there - use disk imaging software like Acronis

5) Back up once a month on a different external drive. Make it a full image, and keep a half dozen

6) Make a non-administrator account, and use it when on-line

7) Turn off preview is good, but also don't let big e-mails come without clicking the box to finish

8) Don't click any links in e-mail unless you are absolutely - positively sure. If your bank, delivery company, spouse, best friend, or whoever gives you the most convincing reason to click that link - don't do it. Go to your bank's site, go to UPS or FedEx, e-mail your spouse or friend, and generally be suspicious that somebody might be trying to trick you

9) Do a separate backup of your important data - I use Microsoft's Free Sync Toy. If I have to revert to an earlier back up, I can restore what I thought was important back up to date

10) Don't store your passwords on your computer either

Since I handle customer credit cards and other information, I keep all their data to a computer that doesn't go on-line, I never-ever keep their credit card numbers, and I encrypt the drive using the highest security available for mere mortals - that way in the unlikely event that someone breaks in and steals the computer, he/she won't be able to get to my customer's data.

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Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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