Anti-Malware Instructions for the Mad Dog Protective Suite

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:

1. It is critical to keep your software up-to-date to protect your computer from as much malware, such as viruses, as possible. Install any Adobe software (Flash, Reader, Acrobat, etc.) or Java updates as soon as  they pop-up to notify you. Most software updates take less than 5 minutes to install and are updating the program to plug security holes that could allow malware (malicious software) in to infect your computer. These update notifications only pop-up when you power on or restart your computer, so we recommend that you restart your computer at least every 2 days.

2. Please make sure you regularly run and update any anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on your system.

3. Windows and Browsers do not have any anti-virus capability, so do not click on any virus message that is not from your Anti-Virus Software (i.e. AVG Anti-Virus); these are bogus messages which may be an actual virus. Do not click on anything if you get a bogus message; press the power button to turn off your computer and contact us for assistance.

 4. Hard drives are subject to failure at any time. The best protection against loss of your information is a properly configured and monitored backup solution. If you don’t already have one, call to ask about our affordable backup solutions today!

5. In the case of Anti-Virus Products, having more is NOT better. If you have more than one Anti-Virus product installed on your computer and they are running at the same time, it can cause severe problems. The programs start fighting each other and won’t do their job of protecting your system from viruses. WE RECOMMEND ONLY HAVING ONE ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM INSTALLED AND RUNNING AT ANY TIME.

 6. SLEEP is a power-saving state that allows a computer to quickly resume full-power operation (typically within several seconds) when you want to start working again. Putting your computer into the sleep state is like pausing a DVD player—the computer immediately stops what it’s doing and is ready to start again when you want to resume working. However, if there is a power outage or some other power interruption while the computer is in sleep, all of the unsaved data is lost, since it was only being stored in memory.

7. HIBERNATE is a power-saving state designed primarily for laptops. While sleep puts your work and settings in memory and draws a small amount of power, hibernation puts your open documents and programs on your hard disk, and then turns off your computer. Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least amount of power. On a laptop, use hibernation when you know that you won’t use your laptop for an extended period and/or won’t have an opportunity to charge the battery during that time. It takes slightly longer to resume from Hibernation than from Sleep. However, it’s more secure because everything‘s written out to disk, and you’re not dependent on a good power source while in Hibernation, as you are with Standby.

8. STANDBY is a low-power state (like light “sleep” mode) so that you can quickly resume your Windows session. To be safe, save your files before entering Standby mode, just in case the computer doesn’t wake up correctly later. In Standby mode, your computer needs power to maintain its state. So for a laptop or desktop, if you’re plugged in to wall power, then you’re fine, but if you have a power failure, you may lose the Standby mode and any unsaved work. On a laptop, if you’re not plugged in to the wall and you go into Standby mode, your laptop battery is being used and therefore there is a certain limited time you can stay in Standby mode before your battery is completely drained and the computer loses its state. Then you’ll be potentially losing work and doing a full reboot. Standby mode should be considered a temporary state you should place your computer in, when you expect to be coming back to it within a few hours.