Getting Started - Part 3

Now that you've learn bout payment processors, chance are you're going to have fund with it and embark on your journey. Before you do that, you need to know a few pretty important things to safeguard your money. Some are pretty obvious, so I wouldn't even elaborate coz the important ones can be found all over the net.

As you may know, I'm more of an autosurf person, although I do engage in hyips and other programs once in a while. I tend to keep a tight portfolio to prevent leakage of important information.

And you may already have guessed by now, this section is primarily on security. This is by no means a complete security guide. It's just the more important things I think everyone should take note off. If at anytime I come across or actually rack my brains and think of other equally important things to add, I'd do so accordingly.

Browser
For an autosufer, a browser is the bread and butter. Without it, you can't surf. If you can't surf, you can't generate money. And of course if you haven't noticed by now, what I just typed was all nonsense.

Ask any experienced autosurfer, and they would tell you that they wouldn't and don't use Internet Explorer to browse. It's one of the more vulnerable browses out there. You can unwittingly allow trojan and keyloggers into your system. And if you can't or don't know how to configure it properly, it can result in popups or framebreakers, disrupting your surfing.

The commonly used browser in this arena is Firefox and Avantbrowser. Both are pretty user friendly and should be easy for the novice. Most important, at least during this period in time, both are pretty secure and almost free from the problems faced by IE. On top of that, both allow tabbed browsing. That means you can surf different programs at the same time within a same window. This saves time as well as keeps your task bar neat and tidy.

When you install the browsers, remember to disable the password managers. You wouldn't want a malicious hacker to gain access to your passwords.

Passwords
Password security as you probably have read and know should be one of the most important issues. It's always important to keep your passwords unique. What many people do not know is that the script commonly found in most autosurfs have a serious flaw. The passwords used by members are saved as a non-encrypted text file. That means an unscrupulous owner or a hacker can access your passwords. Hence keep them unique.

Another thing most veterans would do is to use a program called Roboform to help keep track of passwords. What this program does is that it creates a password for you for a site and stores it in an encrypted file. When you need to access a site, just open the roboform and perform a cut and paste function of your password. What this does is that it helps you keep track of numerous passwords as well as prevents you from typing your password, in the event that your computer has been infected by a keylogger.

When you sign up for an autosurf or a hyip program, chances are they would send you an activation email with your password in it. If you have a printer, print it out. If you don't, write it down. Don't save it in your email, especially if it's a free email provider. If your email account gets hacked, chances are your passwords will all be exposed.

E-gold security
As mentioned in the other parts of this blog, e-gold provides no chargeback. If your account is hacked and the money transferred out, there is no recourse.

Here are a few things you can do to safeguard your e-gold account.

1. In your 'Account Info', set 'Detect IP Change Sensitivity' to high. What this will do is send you a pin number to your email everytime you log in with a different IP address. And while logging in, use the SRK function. It's a virtual keyboard where you can enter your passphrase with your mouse instead of typing. This prevents keyloggers from getting your passphrase.

2. Use an ISP email. Do not use a free email from the net. Chances of hacking in a free yahoo or gmail account is generally easier than an ISP mail server, not to say that it wouldn't happen....just harder. Moreover if you use a free email to sign up for autosurf/hyip accounts and use only the isp email specifically for e-gold, chances are the email address is not exposed.

3. Own a secondary e-gold account. E-gold allows you to open unlimit accounts. It would be prudent to open a secondary account. Use your primary account for payments and receipts. Transfer the money to a secondary account. should your primary account get hacked (unlikely if you have been keep good security practises), most of your money is in your secondary account. Sure you have to pay the fees for transfer, but considering the fees for e-gold are so low, it's a good price to pay for ease of mind.

4. E-gold will never...and I repeat...NEVER...send you an email with a link. In fact that goes for all pay processors. If you receive a letter from e-gold with a url in it, you can be 100% sure it's a phishing site. Phishing sites are sites that fish for your information, in this case, your login information. So NEVER click on a url from any emails claiming to be from e-gold.

Anti-virus software and other software
Always keep your anti-virus software updated. You may never know what new programs will hit your computer. If you don't have any anti-virus software, it's time to get one. Personally I'm using McAfee, but mine is a paid version. If you're looking for a free one, I would recommend Avast. It has served me very well in the past, and I have no complains about it.

You would probably also need to have anti-spyware/anti-adware programs installed. Personally I use a tandem of Spybot and Ad-aware. They compliment one another very well, and so far I've yet to encounter any problems.

Remember to run your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs regularly. It defeats the purpose of installing them and not running them at all.

You'd probably also need to have a firewall installed. If you're technically saavy, Zonealarm comes heavily recommended. If you're not, the firewall that comes with your windows extension pack is good enough.