The June 2009 issue of Consumer Reports (CR) had an article and ratings on "Security Software." I don't pay much attention to their recommendations because they are all suites and I prefer standalone solutions.

The August issue has a reader response that says, "I just read "Security Software" and in addition to sing software to protect a computer, a good practice is to create a nonadministrator user account for all programs that use the Web. When you browse a site that tries to install malware, the installation fails since your account does not have enough privilege. Any other malicious changes to your computer will also fail."

I looked on the CR forums, but didn't find anyone disputing this statement. If it were that simple, why do anything else? It doesn't sound right to me, but before I post the topic on CR, I would like to know if this is a step that should be included in an area such as, "why did I get infected in the first place."

I tried creating and using a "user account" but it was a drag and so just switched to "administrator" all the time. Now I wonder if I should rethink that and are the consequences of not using "user account" that dire?