I'm going to jump into online banking soon, and that got me thinking more seriously about security. One way was to be offline completely at night. The internet never sleeps. A concern was getting updates but MS schedules them the second Tuesday of each month at 10AM PST and sometimes more often in a critical situation. I set this PC up for automatic updates when I bought it, but I should go back and re-visit updates and search for new ones. Google gave mixed suggestions concerning on or off at night.
I leave the router on since I need it for the telephone but shut down the PC because I don't know why I should leave it on. Updates can wait till the next morning and there are MS updates once a month only anyway.
We never shut down the router/modem, and computer shut-downs are a mixed bag. My laptop is always on unless forced to restart for updates. Our desktop stays shut down most of the time since it's upstairs in the study and is only used when my husband is working on finances, taxes, etc. The rest of the time he's on a tablet... and our tablets are not usually shut down, just "sleeping" when not in use. Internet banking is relatively safe; make sure that you don't store your passwords to "autofill" or anything like that. If your bank offers two-factor authentication you might set that up as well.
I turn my computer off when I go to bed. I know it only uses a little electricity when it's asleep but I figure; why waste that little bit? I'm thrifty that way. If every person in the world turned their computer off all night, I wonder how much electricity we would save?
I shut off the PC, but the Modem stays on. (My Modem has an Antenna...does that mean it's a Router? Good God!) Hal
I shut my computer off when I leave the room unless I plan to be right back. My MacBook Pro will hold a charge for about six hours but the batteries don't last forever so I don't like either draining it completely or leaving it on the charger all the time. My iMac is about ten years old and every now and then it will make a horrific noise, then reboot itself. It's odd because it sounds like a grinding noise but it's coming through the speaker; when the volume is down, it will reboot but I don't hear the noise. I brought it into to the Apple store once but they kept it on for a couple of days and it never did that, which isn't surprising since it only does that once every few months. Then again, I don't leave it on. Regardless, I have never been in the habit of leaving my computers on. I do leave the wireless on because we use that for television, the Kindles, and so on.
I use a desktop computer, no battery needed, it is on all the time, but when I am not using it, I put it on hibernation - that saves me in my home electrical billing.
I leave my modem on all the time, but run my desk p.c. off wifi only. I do all my banking on line, Ed. I developed a separate email just for that and nothing else.
With my desktop Mac I just put it in sleep mode when I go to bed... or leave the house for any length of time. About once a week I close it properly so it can do all it's updates etc... My windows laptop however is turned off but always fully charged, as is my Ipad...
Since I use a desk top almost exclusively, I leave the computer on. When I go to visit my son for an extended period, I do shut it down.