Is there a way to prevent companies from seeing anything you do on the computer?

[widechannel955]

Your question was a little vague to me, I wasn't sure if your talking about your home computer or your office computer.

On My Home Computer I find what works for me is;

1) Use the Mozilla Firefox browser. Internet explorer has been a big target of too much adware / spyware.

http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/firefox/

2) Install the adblock plug-in from firefox addons. this will stop those pop up ads on web pages.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

3) Learn how to disable cookies & exempt only those for trusted sites.
For firefox you access cookie control under tools - options - privacy.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security..._help.html

4) Get a good spyware/ adware remover program and run the remover at least once amonth. some recommended Freeware programs;

Spybot - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
adaware - http://www.lavasoft.com/

Even yahoo toolbar has a spyware remover on it now.

I hope these steps can help with your home computer.

As for your office it would depend on the companies IT rules. Most office networks limit access to IT personnel when it comes to modifying or installing software. Some companies go so far as to install software packages that track the web addresses accessed by each employee. best rule of thumb is, if you company is draconian about office computer use than don't do it at work.