In part, it's due to a severe shortage of computer security specialists and engineers with the skills and knowledge necessary to do battle against would-be adversaries.

But really the whole mission statement of Adbusters is stupid. Removing all ads from the internet will destroy pretty much every service on the internet. Think youtube would be profitable without ads? How about any site you visit with alot of images. Bandwidth isn't free so sites make money from either ads, donations or memberships. Most sites with memberships remove the ads for you so this goal is STUPID. Just use Adblock if you hate them so much

Avoid Microsoft products where possible. Computers using the Microsoft Windows platform are especially vulnerable as of this writing (although no operating system is immune to all potential attacks). Consider using a non-Microsoft operating system if possible. However, if you have to use Microsoft Windows and you are connecting to the Internet, your best bet is to minimize the number of Microsoft Internet applications you use â" for example, use Firefox as a browser or Thunderbird as a mail client. Microsoftâ(TM)s Internet Explorer and its email programs Outlook and Outlook Express are very difficult for even professionals to secure. Furthermore, adversaries tend to attack more popular platforms and applications.

Keep your software updated. Use the latest stable version of your operating system. As of this writing, Windows 95, 98, and ME are utterly obsolete. You should be using at least Windows Server 2003 for servers and Windows XP for clients, with all patches and service packs applied. For Macintosh computers, use OS X 10.4 or greater, with all patches applied. For Linux and Unix, get whatever version is the most recent stable release, and follow all updates. It is especially important not to let server software versions lag behind, since servers are always on and always connected.

Maintain your firewalls. Firewalls are software or hardware components that protect your computer or network from the Internet, blocking traffic based on network-related parameters like IP addresses and port numbers. Firewalls can protect against those who want to access your computer without permission. Configuring network firewalls is pretty tough for the layperson and beyond the scope of this guide, but you should learn how to use the personal firewall software thatâ(TM)s included in most recent operating systems.

For more detailed information about malware, check out the Malware article in the Defensive Technology section.