Preface:
I am well read and researched in the subject of philosophy. Politics is a very serious interest of mine. Trump is my favorite candidate and I can defend that stance with decisive logic. HOWEVER, because I am a newbie, and the rules of the forum are that newbies cannot contribute to threads on politics or philosophy, I will contribute on the topic of technology, which is my profession.
How to avoid computer viruses
>Anti-virus software
The importance of anti-virus software should not be undervalued. Paid for titles like Bit-Defender and free versions like Avast and AVG are quite effective, but they are not full-proof. There are other techniques for avoiding viruses that are equally as important and possibly more effective.
Fun fact: I have been known to have computers that did not run anti-virus software, and went virus free for years, despite downloading many torrents.
Here are the tips:
>Don't click on ads
No matter how enticing, don't click on ads. If the content of an ad looks like something that is interesting, just open a new tab, use a search engine, and find the content in that manner. DO NOT CLICK ON ADS.
>Don't open emails from unsolicited senders and certainly do not open the attachments!
For those that work in big companies, this is particularly true. Your IT departments would thank me. The content of this post is something that I send out to the users of my company periodically.
Sometimes opening the email is hard to avoid. If you are like me, you get 10-100 emails a day, and you move through them as quickly as possible and spending time trying to decide the legitimacy of an email based on the information provided before opening it is simply impractical. I will tell you that the big hitters these days are emails that refer to unpaid invoices. I have seen countless phishing attempts that had subject lines of this nature. If you see a subject line that talks about an unpaid invoice, stop and ask yourself if that is plausible.
If you feel that you need to open the email to verify then go ahead. Chances are there will be no ill effects from opening the email. However, if it is a phishing attempt, the attachment is where the damage certainly lies. Again, consider the likelihood of the email. Is there any reason that that sender should be asking you for whatever they are asking for? If in doubt, contact the subject company or individual and inquire directly. DO NOT CLICK ON THE ATTACHMENT.
>Thumb drives, HDD, and SSD are bad.
This is not as big of an epidemic as it used to be. At least not in my world. In my world these days, files are more commonly transferred via email or cloud services. Thumb drives aren’t as prevalent as they were a few years ago.
Know this: viruses are commonly self-replicating. That means that if you plug your thumb drive into a computer that has a virus, there is a good possibility that the virus has now been copied to your thumb drive, and when you take that thumb drive to your own computer, it will then be copied to your computer. If your fat-ass beta (or charlie, or delta) classmate offers you his homework and hands you his thumb drive, don't do it. He has probably been downloading porn without prejudice and you will likely get all the nasty viruses that he has on his computer. Tell him to email it, upload it to the cloud, or burn it to a CD instead.
>Torrents
Downloading torrents is risky business. I do it, but I am pretty good at picking up on something that is unusual. But even I get broadsided sometimes. It would take a post far longer than this one to tell you how to navigate torrents strategically. Bottom line is, torrents are risky. Know that trouble is a possibility if you are downloading torrents. Use an old junk computer for downloading torrent if you can; that is what I do.
>Web Browser Defense
Web browsers like Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Mozilla have content filtering mechanisms in place that block or at least discourage you from going to sites that have known malicious content. They tend to be quite effective.
I will be the first to tell you that I detest Google, and I have an inherent repulsion towards the giants like Microsoft. Knowing the power and reach of Google and how haphazardly people give up there information to them makes it clear that they could be a very damaging force to society if their agenda ever turned to something evil. In brief, I believe that if any company had a potential for becoming Skynet, it would be Google.
>In closing
Even if you have the best anti-virus software and follow all of these tips, it is still possible that you will get a virus, but the likelihood will be reduced by 99.9%.
Please let me know if you have any questions or if there are certain technological topics that you would like me to elaborate on.
I am well read and researched in the subject of philosophy. Politics is a very serious interest of mine. Trump is my favorite candidate and I can defend that stance with decisive logic. HOWEVER, because I am a newbie, and the rules of the forum are that newbies cannot contribute to threads on politics or philosophy, I will contribute on the topic of technology, which is my profession.
How to avoid computer viruses
>Anti-virus software
The importance of anti-virus software should not be undervalued. Paid for titles like Bit-Defender and free versions like Avast and AVG are quite effective, but they are not full-proof. There are other techniques for avoiding viruses that are equally as important and possibly more effective.
Fun fact: I have been known to have computers that did not run anti-virus software, and went virus free for years, despite downloading many torrents.
Here are the tips:
>Don't click on ads
No matter how enticing, don't click on ads. If the content of an ad looks like something that is interesting, just open a new tab, use a search engine, and find the content in that manner. DO NOT CLICK ON ADS.
>Don't open emails from unsolicited senders and certainly do not open the attachments!
For those that work in big companies, this is particularly true. Your IT departments would thank me. The content of this post is something that I send out to the users of my company periodically.
Sometimes opening the email is hard to avoid. If you are like me, you get 10-100 emails a day, and you move through them as quickly as possible and spending time trying to decide the legitimacy of an email based on the information provided before opening it is simply impractical. I will tell you that the big hitters these days are emails that refer to unpaid invoices. I have seen countless phishing attempts that had subject lines of this nature. If you see a subject line that talks about an unpaid invoice, stop and ask yourself if that is plausible.
If you feel that you need to open the email to verify then go ahead. Chances are there will be no ill effects from opening the email. However, if it is a phishing attempt, the attachment is where the damage certainly lies. Again, consider the likelihood of the email. Is there any reason that that sender should be asking you for whatever they are asking for? If in doubt, contact the subject company or individual and inquire directly. DO NOT CLICK ON THE ATTACHMENT.
>Thumb drives, HDD, and SSD are bad.
This is not as big of an epidemic as it used to be. At least not in my world. In my world these days, files are more commonly transferred via email or cloud services. Thumb drives aren’t as prevalent as they were a few years ago.
Know this: viruses are commonly self-replicating. That means that if you plug your thumb drive into a computer that has a virus, there is a good possibility that the virus has now been copied to your thumb drive, and when you take that thumb drive to your own computer, it will then be copied to your computer. If your fat-ass beta (or charlie, or delta) classmate offers you his homework and hands you his thumb drive, don't do it. He has probably been downloading porn without prejudice and you will likely get all the nasty viruses that he has on his computer. Tell him to email it, upload it to the cloud, or burn it to a CD instead.
>Torrents
Downloading torrents is risky business. I do it, but I am pretty good at picking up on something that is unusual. But even I get broadsided sometimes. It would take a post far longer than this one to tell you how to navigate torrents strategically. Bottom line is, torrents are risky. Know that trouble is a possibility if you are downloading torrents. Use an old junk computer for downloading torrent if you can; that is what I do.
>Web Browser Defense
Web browsers like Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Mozilla have content filtering mechanisms in place that block or at least discourage you from going to sites that have known malicious content. They tend to be quite effective.
I will be the first to tell you that I detest Google, and I have an inherent repulsion towards the giants like Microsoft. Knowing the power and reach of Google and how haphazardly people give up there information to them makes it clear that they could be a very damaging force to society if their agenda ever turned to something evil. In brief, I believe that if any company had a potential for becoming Skynet, it would be Google.
>In closing
Even if you have the best anti-virus software and follow all of these tips, it is still possible that you will get a virus, but the likelihood will be reduced by 99.9%.
Please let me know if you have any questions or if there are certain technological topics that you would like me to elaborate on.