If you’ve been using a computer for longer than 3 years, chances are that you use Internet Explorer for browsing the web. It’s come a long way in a short amount of time, but if you’re looking for more features and more security on the web there are a couple of free alternatives. Firefox is the most popular free alternative to Internet Explorer and offers some great features, including tabbed browsing and add-ons to improve and increase functionality. Firefox is considered by some to be more secure than Internet Explorer, and you can use both at the same time if you wish. Bear in mind that even if you wish to switch to Firefox for all your browsing needs, some websites and applications require Internet Explorer and will not work within Firefox. Happy browsing!

One important but often overlooked area of security is Windows Updates. Some security threats require patches from Microsoft to permanently solve the problem or decrease the danger, and by default Windows is set to download updates automatically. There are situations where your system may not download updates for some reason, or a problem will stop Windows Update from functioning as expected. If you’re worried you may not have all updates and patches you can initiate the procedure manually. In WIndows XP, click the ’start’ menu, then hover over the words ‘all programs’ at the bottom. In the new menu that appears, move the mouse right up to the top and select ‘Windows Update’. The Internet Explorer web browser will open, follow on screen instructions to manually check for updates. You can even use this process to update other Windows components for increased functionality, such as Windows Media Player!