Crazy Insanely Safe Web Browsing

Is there a way to browse the web free from the concern that your computer may be infected with viruses, malware, or other malicious software? It can be done. I'm not talking about routine safe computing practices. I'm talking about going the extra mile if you are concerned about safe surfing.

Really Safe Surfing

You are probably aware that Linux is the most secure and virus free of the major operating systems. And, thanks to a marvellous free piece of free software called Virtual Box, you can run Linux as a virtual machine on any Windows or Mac machine. For that matter, you can run a virtual Linux machine on another Linux machine. So here is the first step in a safe surfing plan. Download a copy of Virtual Box for your operating system HERE. Next, download a copy or your favourite Linux distribution. If you have a newer computer with a fast processor, you might want to play with a full featured and powerful distribution like Ubuntu. If your hardware is a bit older, a light version of Ubuntu, Lubuntu, is a good choice. For seriously light weight browsing, you could try Puppy Linux.

Install Virtual Box, then run it. Next, follow the instructions to install the Linux distribution that you downloaded. Once installed and running, to get the most out of your virtual machine, you should install the "Guest Additions". The Guest Additions software gives you complete control over your virtual machines settings, including screen resolution, and the way your virtual machine interacts with the host machine. Go to "Devices", and select "Install Guest Additions". The install wizard will guide you through the process.

Once you have your virtual machine up and running the way you want, go to the "Context" menu, and select "Clone". Follow the directions to make a clone of your virtual machine. Reserve your original virtual machine for safe keeping, and do your browsing from the clone. While it is extremely unlikely that your virtual machine will be compromised, for maximum safety, delete the clone periodically, and make a fresh new clone from your original copy.

Insanely Safe Web Browsing

There is an even safer way to browse. Instead of creating a virtual machine, you can install your chosen Linux distribution to a flash drive. The easiest way to do this is with a neat little program called Unetbootin, (download it HERE). Unetbootin will create a bootable flash drive with your chosen Linux distribution. You don't even have to download the distro. Unetbooting will take care of everything, including the download and writing the drive. Set your computer's BIOS to boot from the USB drive. Pop the drive in and reboot. You can safely browse from your USB drive. Once again, the odds of your Linux distribution being compromised is very small, but for maximum safety, periodically start up Unetbootin and make a new copy.

Crazy Insanely Safe Web Browsing

For extreme crazy insanely safe web browsing, instead of installing your distro to a USB drive, try this. Many Linux distributions will boot a demo mode from a CD, including the distros that I suggested, Ubuntu, Lubuntu, and Puppy. Burn the downloaded ISO image to a CD, set your computer's BIOS to boot from it, and fire up your machine. Because the CD is 'read only', there is no way that it can be infected by a virus. There is a downside. Since you can't save to your CD, you can't save any of your settings, so you have to start from scratch every time. But your browsing session will be safe--crazy, insanely safe!