Internet-Safety

Internet Safety: What You Should Always Remember

The whole realm of the internet is one which is rife with both positives and negatives. When using the net, your safety is first and foremost your personal responsibility.

Hello and welcome to Fishnet. We are an online publication which dedicates itself to the discussion of the World Wide Web. We believe that it is critical for everyone to have a strong working knowledge of this tool. There are a lot of good things that can come from the net: faster communication, general connectivity, and so many more. Of course, this only means to imply that the other side of the coin in true as well.

The net is a place that is full of dangers.

The Dangers

When it comes to the whole idea of the web, a lot of people get carried away with the thinking that the net has no inherent dangers with it. After all, if they’ve managed to use it before and not come across any problems, there shouldn’t be any trouble in the future right? Wrong.

Here’s a just a few of the dangers that are in lingering in the web:

  • Key loggers
  • Mimic sites
  • Malware
  • Viruses
  • Other users

It is important to note that these are just a few of the dangers that can be found in the web. We say this often but we can’t help it because there is much truth to it: there have been far too many individuals who have fallen prey to the dangers of the web. We emphasize this because we do want people to practice internet safety.

Internet Safety

The internet can be a pretty great place. It is somewhere you can go to learn about things that you’ve always wanted to find out more about. It can help you make things. It can be your source of livelihood. All this—and more—can be achieved if you are aware of how to practice internet safety.

If you are unsure of how that is achieved or what you can do to make it happen, here are a few pointers regarding what you should always remember:

Never Give Your Private Information to Strangers

The internet is a pretty powerful place. It can connect complete strangers to each other in the blink of an eye—or in this case, a few clicks of a mouse. While the social aspect of the net is one which people would like to cultivate, there are those that use social programs like chatrooms or messaging applications to dupe people. In the worst case, they can even steal your identity.

So whenever you are speaking to a complete stranger online, it would be to your best interest to never ever share your personal information like your full name, address, and many other personal information that can compromise your safety and your security.

This can seem rather difficult especially if you are aiming to use the internet to find relationships. Any person will tell you that exchanging private information is always a no-no—especially when it comes to strangers. Your private information can be used against you if you are not being careful about it.

Think Before Your Click

It can be fairly easy to just be on a clicking spree when you feel that you are quite familiar with the webpage that you are visiting. The trouble with being click-happy is the fact that there are nefarious individuals which take advantage of this bad habit. There are those that build pop up ads which are positioned well enough to get more people to click on it.

Once selected, it either directs the individual to a mimic site, an ad heavy site full of malware, or even starts a download of a program or virus. With so much at stake, it would be in your best interest to be economical when it comes to your clicks. In fact, it would be even better if you think before you click on a window or a link.

When something becomes rote, it is very easy to make mistakes or to feel overconfident. It is exactly this which nefarious people out there are relying upon. They know for a fact that people who regularly surf the web get complacent and may end up clicking a link that they normally wouldn’t have. It is this one mistake that can lead to some rather costly ramifications for the user.

Regularly Scan Your Computer or Gadget

Having an anti-virus program along with firewall protection software is a must for anyone who likes to go on the web. Such programs help to keep you safe whenever you make use of the internet. They regularly update their list of known threats and malware in order to effectively block them from penetrating your computer.

They will even tell you if the page you are trying to visit is compromised or has been known to have been hacked or has had records of being used to infect people’s systems. If you are going to be a regular fixture on the internet, it is important that you protect yourself and your system by having anti-virus programs do a regular scan of the system and the files.

Don’t just rely on the program itself to do a regularly scheduled scan of your system. In fact, it is most ideal if before and after you use the web, you do a mandatory scan of your system. This is one of the best preemptive and safe practices that web users can have to better secure their safety and the integrity of their computer or gadget.

Grow Your Knowledge of Best Practices

Right now, you’re well on your way in doing that because you’re reading this article but we hope that you don’t stop there. In order to attain a good understanding of internet safety, it is always smart to grow your knowledge or the relevant practices or habits that you should keep up. In that sense, it should also help you comprehend which habits are actually rather detrimental to your safety.

When it comes to surfing the net, the threats which arise only grow more complex with time. Newer styles of malware or scams are created. So it would be good for anyone to obtain a better understanding of internet issues or vulnerabilities which can exist.

Before You Go

We hope that you carry the information that we’ve given you as you move forward with your internet utilization. We can all agree that the net is a pretty special place. It is one which can carry a truckload of negatives but it does not outweigh the positives. When it comes to the internet, being smart and practicing safe habits will help keep you—and your loved ones—safe.

Now, we’d like to turn the question to you: what do you always keep in mind when it comes to your internet habits?

internet safety

Infographic by: graphs.net