Site icon Tech Tips » Surfnetkids

Ways to Improve Your Social Networking Safety

Switch to Desktop/Mobile View

Whenever you sign up on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace, you are putting your online safety at risk. Here are some ways that you can improve your social networking safety just by taking a few basic steps. These few basic steps will help you protect your online safety.

There are a number of different steps that you can take in order to further protect your identity and to improve your online safety from any unsavory persons who want to destroy your life by stealing your identity. While there are a number of different things that you can and should do in order to improve your online safety, you should make sure that you consider getting disposable email addresses as you work to ensure that nobody can ever invade your privacy and nobody can ever find out who you are when you are online.

Identity theft is becoming more and more of a problem as people start doing more and more things online. Millions of people were the victims of identity theft last year, and since hardly any identity thefts are investigated and prosecuted, hardly anybody ever gets any of their money back. Identity thieves clean out your finances, and destroy your credit by spending money in your name, leaving you responsible for everything. Online transactions are one of the absolutely best ways for people to get a hold of your name, your address, your social security number, your bank account number, and more information that allows them to invade your privacy and steal your identity. However, there are a few basic things that you can do that will help you protect your privacy and ensure your online safety. One of these things is to get some disposable email addresses.

Tips for online safety

1. Turn off your computer. This particular tip for online safety, just like most of the tips for online safety, is really a matter of common sense. If you aren’t going to turn off your computer, at least unplug your Internet cable or turn off your wireless switch so that somebody from a remote computer can’t get into your computer through the Internet. However, if you do turn off your computer, you will protect yourself and you will save energy.

2. Buy a security suite. Your computer will come with a few security components, such as a firewall that you can turn on. You should turn on all of the security elements that your computer comes with. However, it is also a good idea for you to purchase a security suite that adds even more security for you. Make sure, however, that your computer has enough power and memory–at least one gigabyte–to support a security suite, since it takes a lot of power to run one.

3. Be careful with your downloads. Just because a site says that it is approved by the Better Business Bureau, or because it says that it is secure, does not necessarily mean that it is. Also, even if you think that you are downloading something from a safe site, a lot of downloads come with spyware and other things that compromise your security. Only download from a site that you trust, such as Download.com

4. Don’t use a wireless connection for any personal or financial business. Also don’t use any public computers for any personal or financial business.

5. Get some disposable email addresses. You can use these disposable email addresses for any sort of web site that you have to register for, like a chat room or a social networking site. Also, you can use your disposable email addresses for contacts with business or people who you don’t want to know your actual email address, thus preserving your identity and keeping your business private.