Here are a few of our suggestions at some common sense solutions to virus protection.

Never open an attachment

Yep you read that right we said never, NEVER, open an attachment. A little overboard you might think. But when you understand what we mean by that rather inflamatory statement you will see the sense of it.

Rather than open an attachment in your email program save the attachment to your harddrive. Then start whatever program is appropriate for the attachment (such as Photoshop for jpgs). Once the appropriate view program is started open the attachment using "File/Open" from the programs menu.

Why this round-about method? In Windows when you activate an attachment windows will look at the extension (or the internals of the attachment) and decide for itself which program to use to open the attachment. Well if the attachment has a hidden ".exe" Windows will run the attachment as a program thus activating the virus. This can happen with an attachment such as "picture.jpg.exe". You might think it is a jpg, double-click on it to open and bam Windows runs the attachment as a program.

But, if you open Photoshop then use the File/Open menu to open the attachment Photoshop will inform you "Hey, that's not a good graphics file". This is better than the virus being run, don't you think?

Also when you go to save the attachment you will notice the extra extension and just forget the whole thing in the first place.

Just because a friend sent you the attachment doesn't make it safe.

In fact, if a friend sent you the attachment it is more likely to be un-safe. Yep you read that right we said never, NEVER, open an attachment. A little overboard you might think. But when you understand what we mean by that rather inflamatory statement you will see the sense of it.

Rather than open an attachment in your email program save the attachment to your harddrive. Then start whatever program is appropriate for the attachment (such as Photoshop for jpgs). Once the appropriate view program is started open the attachment using "File/Open" from the programs menu.

Why this round-about method? In Windows when you activate an attachment windows will look at the extension (or the internals of the attachment) and decide for itself which program to use to open the attachment. Well if the attachment has a hidden ".exe" Windows will run the attachment as a program thus activating the virus. This can happen with an attachment such as "picture.jpg.exe". You might think it is a jpg, double-click on it to open and bam Windows runs the attachment as a program.

But, if you open Photoshop then use the File/Open menu to open the attachment Photoshop will inform you "Hey, that's not a good graphics file". This is better than the virus being run, don't you think?

Also during the attachment save process you have an opportunity to notice the extra extension and just forget the whole thing in the first place.

Don't use Outlook.

Not withstanding the fact that Outlook is one of the most popular email programs it is also the most susceptible to a virus. Microsoft in their infinite lack of wisdom have put hooks into Outlook which make the job of a virus designer much easier. So if you don't like walking around the gun range with a bullseye painted on your back you might want to consider a different email program. If you do prefer Outlook then you should Turn off Active Pages.