In my experience, the simplest way to do this is to run Secunia's free Personal Software Inspector (PSI) to check for and install updates. You will no longer be able to update Windows XP, but that makes it even more important to keep all your other programs up to date. Websites can make a lot of money from 'drive by' installations of advertising programs and other unwanted software. Most commercial sites tend to be safe, but sites that offer free stuff – pirated music, movies and software, wallpapers etc – either may not be professionally run or may be making their money by other means. Its main purpose it to improve privacy, but it also makes browsing more secure.įinally, for this section, be careful where you go. The 'S' indicates that it uses encrypted communications to talk to websites, whenever possible. When you have installed Firefox, Chrome or Opera, add a browser extension called HTTPS Everywhere. Against that, Chrome is probably more secure because its 'sandbox' means malware writers need two exploits to penetrate it: one for Chrome and another to get out of the sandbox. Generally, I prefer Firefox, as it consumes far fewer resources than Chrome, handles more tabs, and doesn't crash as often. However, there are several alternatives including Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Microsoft has chosen not to provide its own more secure browsers, IE10 and IE11, to XP users, at some sacrifice in market share. You should also download and use a more secure browser than Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8. If children or accident-prone adults share the same PC, they should definitely be given their own limited accounts.Īll XP accounts should be protected by passwords, though many people don't do this. To make this a little more palatable, tick the box that says 'Use Fast User Switching' when you set up the limited account. Of course, if you need to install some software or make system changes, you will have to switch to an admin account. The solution is to use a 'limited' account, which also limits what most malware programs can do. The problem is that any malware that gets control of your admin account can also do whatever it likes. Most people use 'administrator' accounts, because these let you do whatever you like. The quickest and simplest way to make XP more secure on the internet is to use it from a limited account. So, let's look at what you can do to run an XP machine normally, but more safely. The price of Windows 7 Pro means this isn't a solution for most home users: you'd be better off putting the money towards a newer -– perhaps secondhand – PC. This let you run Windows 7 as your main operating system, while simultaneously running a free 'virtual' copy of Windows XP. Microsoft's solution was to provide an XP Mode in Windows 7 Pro. Dual-booting two operating systems is tedious and time consuming, but at least you can get online while continuing to use the XP software that has presumably prevented you from upgrading to a more recent version of Windows. However, an alternative is to install a copy of Linux on the same PC, or boot Linux from a Live CD, and use that for browsing and email. This works for some business PCs that are used for specific purposes, such as controlling machine tools, but isn't practical for most users.

The quickest way to make a Windows XP machine almost completely secure is to prevent it from accessing the internet. (For comparison, all versions of Mac OS X add up to 7.6%, with Linux at 1.5%.) Since XP is fundamentally much less secure than Windows 7 (48.8%), Windows 8 (11.3%) or even Vista (3.0%), it's a very attractive target for malware writers. There are roughly 1.5 billion PCs in the world, and NetMarketShare reckons that 27.7% are still running XP. However, because XP will now get more insecure every month, you need to take protection much more seriously. The things you can do to protect XP apply to all versions of Windows.

Unfortunately, there is no 'magic bullet'.

If you are still running Windows XP, it would be a good idea to make it as secure as possible. Nobody knows what will happen next, but malware writers are expected to target the remaining machines. Microsoft has shipped its final update for Windows XP, which means all the new security holes will not be patched. What actions should they take to minimise their exposure to attack, while they consider their options/save up? Whitesocks My bet is that the vast majority of the Windows XP users reading this did not update their computers/operating systems by 8 April.

Windows xp emulator mac free