As many have already made the move, one of the best things that you can do for yourself online these days is to get smart about how you get online. You’ve all seen the NetZero ads that have the CEO say something to the effect of “… they all get you to the same internet …”, while this is absolutely true, getting to the internet from a connection standpoint and viewing the internet are two drastically different things.

One of the best things that I’ve picked up in my travels is the little bit of advice on how you can protect yourself online. First off, anyone who tells you firewalls, blah, anti-virus, blah, pop-up blockers, blah–IF YOU HATE VISTA, then you would NEVER buy into all of this. Why? Because it add LAYERS upon LAYERS that you have to traverse to get online. What does this mean, slower connection, more things that can break, more things to keep updated and maintain, long story short, a big nightmare.

So a few tips to keep you safe and at a reasonable level of sanity, all for the cost of nothing but your eyeballs to keep reading!

First things first, the at the gateway, get yourself a decent router. Nothing fancy, for the more advance go build one, that’s right, get a box, get to google, and google away to figure out how to build yourself the biggest baddest router you can possible get with all the bells and whistles that it itself doesn’t even know its online when its online! For the rest of us, get real, and just spend between $100-$200 and buy a Netgear, Linksys, or Dlink router and be done with it. It has all the firewall protection you need, NAT, blah blah blah, PERIOD.

Second, get yourself a decent anti-virus software, one that doesn’t infest your system with tons of crap! McAfee was a great piece of software, until it became the demon in your system, infesting it in every nook and cranny! Get rid of that and go with something simple and free, like AVG! I’ve even saved you the clicks, just CLICK HERE to get the software!

Last but not least, do yourself a favor and get off the soap box of which browser is better. They are both great, yes I am talking about IE7 and Firefox, but you have to be willing to say openly that they are great in their own way. Just think about it, if you have two children, they are not the same–even identical twins are not the same, so stop comparing browsers in the same way! Isn’t it alright to say that a browser is just a browser and what it’s good in, the other doesn’t have to be as well? Certainly! So go ahead and use IE7, use it to your hearts content, but here’s the rule–ONLY use IE7 for the VERY IMPORTANT things, things that DO NOT involve checking your email, but things such as banking, or checking your stocks, or online shopping, things that require credit card information, etc. But here’s the catch–YOU CAN ONLY USE IT FOR THAT ONE PURPOSE! It will become your secure browser that will work with almost everything, and you don’t infest it with random websites, emails, bogus ActiveX components, blah blah blah–and guys, stop looking at porn through IE7, you cause more damage than good!

For the rest of your browsing entertainment, use something rock stable like FireFox.

Firefox 3

you might as yourself why? Because every day web-browsing can be dangerous! It’s a brave new world out there and you have to be a conscious shopper. That means you can’t keep using that one browser until it DIES! Get smart, get firefox, and be smart about which browser you use for which activity and stick to it and be consistent!