A reader made a great comment on my article on free safe gaming for elementary age students; she commented that free gaming can cause problems with viruses on your PC. Perhaps you know how to downland and or play online games and yet avoid getting entangled with unwanted things being installed. I just recently managed to removed a particularly tenacious browser helper that was preventing me from searching using Google search engine. Each term that I typed in for search, would send me to all sorts of random irrelevant search pages, utilizing search engines I had never heard of. I had to try several options and perform several utilities to finally root out the pesky search engine pop-ups. Here is a list of steps to take to protect your computer when downloading from the Internet.
Disable pop-up blocker: To access different websites, you will more than likely need to temporarily disable or turn off pop-ups. Your pop-up blocker can be a mixed blessing as many sites rely on pop-ups to access any links on the site. You can turn on the pop-up blocker when you are done if you wish. I don’t use my pop-up blocker. You will need to enable/disable Pop-up Blocker from the pull-down Tools menu.
Download only components you need: Many programs come with free attached toolbars, browser helpers or other programs. You will need to uncheck the ‘Install Free (name of program)’ as the extra programs will download and install by default. If you are given the option of ‘Custom’ or ‘Express’ installation, choose ‘Custom’ so that you can see just what you are getting with the download. for example, our daughter installed Yahoo! messenger, but she didn’t notice that other Yahoo! toolbars were installed with Messenger.
Check your Start Up Menu: If something odd comes on when you start you computer, it means that something has been set to start when you installed it. You can track down unwanted programs by Clicking on Run from your Start Menu. type in ‘msconfig’. This will open your System Configuration Utility.Choose the tab farthest right: Start Up. This will show you all the programs set to start on your computer. Look for programs that you don’t recognize or which have names that look like the name of the unwanted programs.
Run a Virus Scan and a Spyware scan after you download a program: This will show if you have snagged any spyware, adware, toolbars or other suspect programs with the download. My search engine problem did not show on the Virus or Spyware scan so I had to…
Check Downloaded Active X controls: Active X controls allow you to run certain programs. In order to use many programs, certain Active X controls are needed. Some are temporary. Others are disabled when you don’t need them. Others, pernicious little buggers that they are, will run without your permission. Such was the case with my recalcitrant search engine. I am familiar with the Active X controls on my computer and so when I recognized some unfamiliar ones in the list, I knew these were the source of the problems. By disabling them, I got rid of my pests. To view your Active X log and disable any you need to, go to Manage Add-Ons from your pull down Tools menu.
Run a System Restore: This link will take you to my article System Restore Tutorial on how and why to run a system restore.
With these steps, you should be able to download and enjoy hassle-free online gaming.
