How can you protect your software on the computer?

Answer 1

The best way is to do an 'image' (a kind of snapshot) of your disk drive and save it to a different drive. There are many software tools to do that... one which works well for Windows and is free is BootitNG. When you need, or go through a disaster, you can override the disk drive with its older image and restore it to what it contained then. This is foolproof compared to Windows System Restore (I do not know much about its Apple equivalent Time Machine so I cannot comment.

Imaging software has been developed for rapid deployment of systems on numerous machines.

Answer 2

You can do this to some extent, but not entirely.

You can help protect from theft by using encryption. There are a number of free programs which can do this for you - Just do a web search for some. One such program is Glary Utilities. Your files may still be stolen, but they will be useless to most people.

The best way, to protect your files, however, is to simply keep them away from the internet. Use them only on a computer which never has or will be connected to the internet.

As for damage, you cannot completely protect from this, but you improve your chances considerably by creating backups. A flashdrive or second harddrive is best for this.

You can also use a cloud backup program, if you want. Some, like DropBox and Box.net offer a small amount of free storage. If you want more that what they give you, you must buy it. IDrive is another good cloud storage service, but there is no free offering. However, cloud storage, although generally encrypted, is still nowhere near as safe from theft as a flashdrive.

My advice: Encrypt with a free program, and store on a backup drive (or two).