You want to use Windows as the operating system on your computer? feel free, but please don’t come to me when you get infected with viruses. There is nothing wrong with Windows and I use it for my work but I have come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no way you can prevent getting viruses on your system. I have seen with my own eyes a virus rip through anti virus software and install itself just because a client forgot my dire and pompous warnings about never clicking on attachments in e-mails.
The worse thing is that people have an outdated idea of what viruses do; “if my computer is still working I can’t be infected”, er, no. The whole purpose of modern viruses is not to draw attention to themselves whilst they allow their controllers to sell the use of your computer for, most commonly, sending out spam and attacks on web sites (if tens of thousands of computers all look at the same web site at the same time it can make the site inaccessible)., oh, and while they’re doing that they will be logging every keystroke you make on the keyboard to e-mail to keen Russian gangsters for further analysis and credit card detail extraction!
If you are extremely competent technically and are willing to treat your computer as if it was your enemy you can substantially reduce the risk, if not you don’t have a hope in hell.
Me? the only operating system I’ll put on and get involved with for friends is Linux (The Ubuntu version) and that’s only safe for the moment as there are so few Linux computers out there they don’t bother writing viruses for them.
The other option is gat an Apple MAC, a bit too pricey for my taste but a temporary solution at least.
