Safe and Secure.

Recently, I viewed PC Maintenance and Security tutorials shared by Atomic Learning from the following categories:  blocking and killing spyware & adware, tips for safer web browsing, and making e-mail safer.  All three categories contained short tutorials defining specific terms, providing websites to download free software, or demonstrating specific functions of a particular program to either perform system maintenance or increase computer security.  
A few notable things gleaned from the tutorials:

1. Spyware Blaster, a software program which can be downloaded for free, possesses the ability to take a snapshot which captures an image of computer settings at the time of the shot.  An enticing feature of Spyware Blaster:  its ability to restore a computer system to a previously captured snapshot.  The restore feature proves useful in the event of infection by spyware; although, to benefit from this feature one must take preventative measures to capture snapshots.
2. Sandboxie, another software program free for download, provides security while using the internet.  Websites visited are read but no temporary files are written back to the computer's hard drive increasing security from unwanted malware.  The computer operator can run a  variety of programs through Sandboxie as well as view the contents trapped by Sandboxie with the option of restoring or deleting.
3. Phishing scams often appear official having an institution's logo and information; the customer greeting is one thing to note.  Generic greetings should lend suspicion, especially when asked to confirm an account by providing a user name and password. 

Surprisingly, not all anti-spyware identifies and eliminates the same spyware like anti-virus software.  This leads to the recommendation of using multiple types of anti-spyware.  Another surprising discovery is that programs such as DSL offer capabilities to boot on a public computer from a pen drive.  This eliminates a web history saved to the computer used to browse the internet.  Lastly, programs, such as Mail2Web.com, with the ability to access e-mail without images and html code was surprising.