Google, your surfing advisor...
Google has started
warning you
if a site you visit is likely to install ad-ware or spy-ware on
your computer. I thought at first this is probably something your
browser or even your OS should do, but then who knows more
information about websites than google? (Sun and Leveno are also
helping out on this initiative)
Evidently searching on "free screensavers" is a good way boost the
odds of finding a site willing to infect your computer. I would
imagine that using search terms like "free wallpaper" or "free
this" or "free that" or "free anything" will many times lead you to
places on the web you really didn't expect to be.
This news comes just after I spent yet another evening cleaning up
a friends computer, she had a boatload of the usual spy-ware
installed, was using IE instead of an actual web browser. (Internet
Explorer has long lost its right to be considered as a useful
product) and like many of my friend's computers, the virus scanning
software had reached the end of its "
I will help you for
free" mandate and now entered the "
I need you to pay me or I
will stop working" part of its life-cycle.
This situation, I told her last night will be the last time, she
will either buy a Mac or learn to use Linux :-) Both have their own
set of drawbacks, buying a Mac is anything but cheap, and if I
switch her to Linux, who do yo think will have to teach her how to
use it and then fix it when she breaks it?