How to set up a virtual machine for your Internet access

The takeaway from recent revelations of widespread NSA spying is even the best security software is unlikely to keep out elite hackers. One frequently offered defense is to use a separate PC to access the Internet, but that's hardly practical. So short of disconnecting your computer, how can you protect yourself? Thanks to the low price of RAM and availability of fast solid-state drives (SSDs), an increasingly appealing solution is to set up a virtual machine (VM) just for working with emails an...