Just a thought and comment –
There is a new marketing ploy out there that has these “warning†boxes pop up when you go to some websites, they are not scanning your computer or anything like that, and they are just pop up ads. I had them pop up on machines that I just loaded the operating system on and no viruses, worms or adware were present.
Kathy is right, but I add this – make sure you have a really good virus prevention software and keep it up to date, also don’t go to ahh…. porn, off the wall gambling or some of these joke sites or even get curious about them and if a strange email pops up in your inbox like mortgage offers – DELETE IT – DON’T READ IT. These are some of the sources of adware, viruses and such.
My biggest email pet peeve is the forwarded email with the never ending trail from which it came from. I usually just delete them.
The other thing I must warn you about is a scam where they spoof email addresses and make it look like it was sent from your bank, paypal and eBay. I get an average of three a month asking me to log on to the banks website or call a number (of course it is an 800 number and off shore) to ‘confirm’ my personal info or with links to their website so to infect my computer. The funny thing is I get them from banks I never had an account, it is called phishing. As I am writing this I just got one from PayPal telling me that they are suspending my account because I logged in from a different location – funny my home IP address changes every month so ….. well it goes to a Japanese website undoubtedly run by the Japanese or Russian mafia. I usually get five a month from eBay telling me they are locking my account because my info is not up to date – it is.
My suggestion here is simple, if you get one from the bank, go to the bank in person and talk to them. If you get one from eBay or Paypal, go to their site via paypal.com or ebay.com but NEVER click on the link in the email – the second you do you will infect your computer. If you are an outlook express user, turn off the preview pane because some versions of outlook open the email up to preview it. if you are an outlook user, do the same and upgrade to outlook 2003, much better at blocking viruses, adware and such.
Remember DELETE IT - DON'T READ IT.