Chapter 8. GETTING ONLINESECURELY

Plenty of people buy a PC to crunch numbers , scan photos, or cultivate their kids ' hand-eye coordination. But for millions of people, Reason One for using a PC is to get on the Internet. Few computer features have the potential to change your life as profoundly as the World Wide Web and email.

If you upgraded to Windows Vista from an earlier version of Windows, then you can already get online, as the Vista installer is thoughtful enough to preserve your old Internet settings. (So is Windows Easy Transfer, described in Appendix A.)