Here's a great idea to help keep your PC free of malware.  It's free, and you don't need to install anything.  You simply need to change a setting on your PC or in your router.

As you probably know, every web server on the internet has an IP address.  Google's, for example, is 173.194.36.104.  If you were to type http://173.194.36.104 into your web browser, you'd reach their web site. Try it if you don't believe me.

During the development of the Web, it became pretty obvious that forcing users to remember the numerical address of every site they wanted to visit simply wasn't going to work.  So along came DNS, or the Domain Name System.  It's basically a big database of names against IP addresses.  When you type www.google.com into your web browser, your request goes to a DNS server, which looks up the IP address for google.com and then redirects your request to the appropriate server.

There are lots of DNS servers on the internet.  Chances are, your computer is configured to use the one provided by your internet service provider.  And chances are, it works perfectly well at looking up IP addresses. But there are also some other DNS servers that you can use instead, which offer additional features.

For example, security company Sunbelt Software runs its own DNS server.  In addition to providing standard lookups, it also knows which domain names host malware.  In such cases, instead of redirecting your request to the page you requested, it takes you to a warning page on Sunbelt's own web site.  

So, by configuring your computer to use Sunbelt's DNS server, which goes under the name of ClearCloud DNS, you get another layer of security on your PC without having to do anything else.

Full details of how to use the service, which is free, are at http://www.clearclouddns.com.  Basically, you can choose one of 2 options.  To use the service on just a single PC, use the Windows Control Panel to change the properties of your TCP/IP connection and change the address of your DNS server from its current setting to the clearcloud one.

If your PC is connected to a router, it probably uses DHCP to allow the router to automatically tell the computer which DNS server to use.  In which case, a better option is to change the DNS server setting in your router.  That way, all of the devices which are connected to your router, both wireless and wired, will begin to use the new DNS server and thus benefit from the extra protection.  Thankfully, all this is explained in great detail on the clearclouddns.com site, so just follow the instructions.

If you want to see clearclouddns in action, there's a video on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asn3Bp4asro which shows it in more detail.  This is not an official Sunbelt posting, but does provide an interesting overview.

 

 

 

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Thanks to user maxmalone for recommending this.  If there's a Hot Find that you want to tell everyone about, start by telling me.  See http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/submit-product-review.htm.