My husband and I have both been working from home since March 2020. Between making dinner every night and trying to keep my two kids busy (which is a full-time job on its own), and I’m physically and emotionally exhausted. But there’s something else that’s been making me feel anxious lately. Last week, my husband sent me an article about the FBI reporting a 300% rise in cyber-attacks, including phishing and malware, since the start of the pandemic.
As a writer for Fresh Edits, who is on the internet day in-day out, this statistic left me feeling uneasy. Knowing that my computer could be the target for an attack made me realize that I’m not invincible, and I need to protect myself.
To be honest, I never really put that much thought into protecting myself on the Internet at all. I hand out my email address to almost every company who asks for it and even receive my bank statements electronically. My social media accounts, medical files, and work portfolio are all linked to my Gmail account. Up until now, I thought of my computer as a safe place to keep my personal information. But the world is changing.
A Simple Solution
I found out about Guardio through a friend, and honestly, I couldn’t be happier. For those who don’t know, Guardio is the only in-browser anti-virus Chrome extension on the market. Not only did the installation take less than one minute (literally), but since it’s a Chrome extension, I’m protected regardless of any device I use, as long as I’m signed into my Chrome account.
I think this is Guardio’s strongest selling point. I’m always switching from my work PC to my personal laptop and my husband’s computer. With Guardio, I don’t have to pay for three separate anti-virus software programs, saving me an extra $16 a month.
Guardio Always Has My Back
I also like how Guardio works as a preemptive security measure. It scans every website I want to visit, every Chrome extension I want to download, and then blocks my entry if it detects a threat. Guardio gives me peace of mind knowing that I’m always protected.
But my favorite Guardio feature is definitely the email monitoring. I’ll be the first to admit that I used to hand out my Gmail address like it was free candy. Well, when I added the Guardio extension, it checked every website that has my email address on file and then alerted me of three websites with prior data breaches. LinkedIn, Canva, and the popular music streaming service 8tracks had millions of exposed emails and passwords. After receiving Guardio’s report, I immediately changed my passwords.
The Bottom Line
Two months in, and I’m still very pleased with Guardio and its performance. It’s lightweight, doesn’t slow my computer down, and you don’t have to come from a technical background to set it up. Even their customer support (which is superb by the way) answered my questions in “people speak.” I don’t come from a technical background, and these concepts usually go right over my head. But Guardio’s customer support did a great job of answering my questions in simple terms.
The dashboard is also very clean, slick, and straightforward, with no complicated settings. With hackers and malware popping up left and right, you just never know who to trust. I love knowing that Guardio always has my back.