Four simple tips to reduce your exposure to spyware and viruses.

1. Dump Internet Explorer. 99% of spyware enters your computer through malicious web pages and Internet Explorer. Install Firefox or Opera and spyware will be a thing of the past.
http://www.opera.com/ *opera is the better browser*
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

2. Don’t open e-mail attachments and don’t click web pages in strange e-mails.

3. Turn on Windows automatic updates.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;306525

4. Turn on Windows firewall or buy a router that has a built-in NAT firewall.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0204.mspx

These things are not that complicated and you do not have to be a “security expert” to figure them out. I follow these practices and haven’t been had spyware or viruses in years.

Andrew Flanery adds:

5. Stop using HTML email clients (mainly Outlook and Outlook Express), or if you must use a client that processes the HTML using an engine other than Microsoft’s. I recommend Thunderbird which uses the Gecko engine to render the HTML code more safely than Microsoft’s. For a more complete listing goto this tip page.