Gadgetory

whether you're a long time Mac owner or new to the Big Apple it's time to beef up your mac security hi I'm Seth Rosenblatt and today I've got six common sense tips on how to safeguard your mac against the rising tide of malware step 1 get a security suite yes you can stop rolling your eyes now running a security program is just common sense good free and paid options include a vast sophos clam xav Kaspersky and intense tall a suite at the very least use a browser tool that will check links to make sure they're safe before you load them the free avg linkscanner is a good place to start step 2 lockdown admin privileges the default account that you create on your Mac is an administrator account which can be leveraged by the bad guys to infect your machine simple solution create a non admin account for daily use such as email browsing and music and video watching jump over to admit when it's necessary step 3 stay on top of software updates make sure that you let software update do its job programs are rarely updated on a whim so make sure that you've got the latest versions because they may contain security fixes this includes the latest security patches from software makers and Apple itself step 4 ditch Adobe Reader if you can adobe has been notoriously slow in the past about patching security holes in reader they've gotten somewhat better but why risk it when preview and snow leopard and lion can handle the basic PDF reading requirements if you must keep Adobe Reader around make sure that it's always updated to the latest version step 5 get rid of java and flash you can disable Java by going to the Applications folder than utilities and unchecking the java version boxes under the general tab be warned killing flash and still enjoying the modern web means switching to google chrome for your main browser because it's the only browser that comes with flash built in chrome updates regularly and the browser has earned its reputation alongside firefox as a safe browser that patches security problems when discovered step 6 take control of your passwords unlike Microsoft Apple helpfully provides a solid password manager called keychain as often as possible use strong passwords this means random multi-word passwords separated by spaces if you want to get password syncing for multiple device and machine support use one password or LastPass people can and do run max without paying attention to security but as we've seen over the past year attack centered on macs are almost certainly going to increase these tips will help you stay ahead of the bad guys for cnet i'm seth rosenblatt