Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
As you probably already know, scams and hoaxes abound on Facebook.
Luckily, many of those scams and the vast majority of the hoaxes are relatively benign other than the irritation they cause, but some of them are actually quite dangerous.
One of the most dangerous scams ever to hit Facebook is rearing its ugly head once again. [Read more…]
If you use Facebook you’re probably used to receiving cute and funny videos in instant messages (IMs).
And of course there are political videos and a wide variety of other types of videos being shared via IMs as well.
Truth be told, we all get them on a regular basis.
Dozens of videos land in my IM inbox every day, but I never click on any of them. And I strongly recommend that you avoid clicking on them as well.
Many of these seemingly harmless videos are actually quite dangerous because they have viruses attached to them. If you take the bait and attempt to watch one of them, your computer or Android device could become infected. And that could easily ruin your entire day. [Read more…]
A recent study found that almost half of all Americans get their news from Facebook.
That’s a startling number, and it’s even more startling that almost two-thirds of millennials use the social media giant as their primary news source.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with an Internet company delivering the news of the day.
However, the almost constant barrage of “fake news” stories that show up in our Facebook Newsfeeds makes it hard for many users to recognize which stories are true and which are fake.
Luckily, there are things you can do to identify and avoid fake news: [Read more…]
As you probably know, scammers love targeting the 2+ billion worldwide users on Facebook, and unfortunately many of the scams can be quite tempting.
These scams typically piggyback off the success of large corporations because just the name of the company alone tends to lend an air of legitimacy to the fraudulent “offers”.
A perfect case-in-point is the “Free Red Lobster Meals” scam that’s making the rounds yet again on Facebook. [Read more…]
Well, the scammers are working overtime perpetrating yet another new Facebook scam. This one preys on folks who are looking for a good deal on household items.
Unlike the most of the scams that spread on social media, this one seems to be exactly the same in every instance, making it very easy to recognize and avoid.
In a nutshell, the scammer is hacking into legitimate Facebook accounts and posting the following on the hacked accounts’ Timelines. [Read more…]