IDG / Chris Hoffman
IDG / Chris Hoffman
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</div></figure><p class="imageCredit">IDG / Chris Hoffman</p></div>
Worse yet, constantly changing passwords forces people to set weak passwords. People often use the same password with a one or two at the end, for example. It’s not their fault, these people are trying to get on with their day and cope with the confusing password system. That’s why organizations who were at the forefront of required frequent password changes have been backing down .
So why do some people think you should regularly change your passwords? The theory is that this will prevent someone who intercepted your password at some point from continuing to use it – if someone has access to your account, they’ll at least lose that access when you change your password. But there are better ways to do this.
Two-factor authentication , which you should also set up for your important accounts, ensures that people can’t get into the account with just your password, even if they do know the password!
If a website gets breached and passwords leak, it’s smart to change your account password on that website. Many websites will let you know when something like this happens, too, asking for a new password from you. And if you were re-using that password on multiple websites, it would be a good idea to change that password on all the websites you used it on.
But the better solution is to set unique passwords for each website you use, store them in a password manager, and skip the game of Whac-A-Mole.
Running manual antivirus scans
“You should run antivirus scans on your computer” is another of these well-meaning pieces of security advice. Yes, it’s true that antivirus scans are useful, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend time doing it. Computers are designed to automate things and they can automate this.
I wince a little when I see people opening their antivirus to run regular manual scans. You can do that if you like, but we all only have so many hours in a day, and that’s a largely unnecessary action.
Your antivirus software is always running in the background and it’s always scanning, unless you’ve turned that feature off, which you really shouldn’t. Even if you haven’t installed an antivirus, the built-in Microsoft Defender antivirus in Windows Security on Windows 10 and Windows 11 is running regular scans. Your antivirus is running regular scans of the files you download and open to check if they appear dangerous before they can even run. It’s also likely running scheduled deeper scans, just like the ones you’d run if you opened up your antivirus app and clicked the Scan button.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
<div class="lightbox-image-container foundry-lightbox"><div class="extendedBlock-wrapper block-coreImage undefined"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large enlarged-image"><img decoding="async" data-wp-bind--src="selectors.core.image.enlargedImgSrc" data-wp-style--object-fit="selectors.core.image.lightboxObjectFit" src="" alt="2 manual antivirus scan" class="wp-image-2304360" width="1200" height="800" loading="lazy" /></figure><p class="imageCredit">IDG / Chris Hoffman</p></div>
</div></figure><p class="imageCredit">IDG / Chris Hoffman</p></div>
You can run antivirus scans if you want. There’s no real downside beyond wasted time — but I hate to see people waste time. We all only get so much time each day! It’s a daily task you can skip.
If you have specific concerns that your PC might be infected by malware , it may be smart to launch your antivirus program and run a deep scan. It may even be smart to run deep scans with multiple programs to see if you find anything – checking for malware is often a first step in troubleshooting many weird PC stability and performance problems. But save yourself the time and skip the regular manual scans.
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Trusting too much in antivirus software