malware Archives - Rick's Daily Tips

Scam alert: Why you should cancel all of your unused email accounts

Posted on July 14, 2025

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Email is a wonderful tool that allows us to correspond with family members, friends and associates all around the world in just a matter of moments.

Gone are the days of having to write a letter, address an envelope, buy a stamp and send it on its merry way through the postal system with no guarantee that the recipient will receive it in a timely fashion, if at all.

But as the massive Yahoo hack reminded us, all is not perfect in the world of email. [Read more…]

Tips for speeding up a sluggish Windows PC

Posted on June 13, 2025

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Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Modern personal computers are amazing machines. They allow us to do things in minutes that once took hours or days as well as many other things that couldn’t be done at all in times past.

But even with all their awesome power and capabilities, computers are no fun to use when they’re running slowly and freezing up at random times.

Today I’m going to discuss a few things you can do to help speed up a sluggish PC and hopefully avoid having to deal with erratic system performance.

[Read more…]

Q&A: Does Malwarebytes still offer a free version?

Posted on June 2, 2025

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Question from Martha: Hi, Rick. I need your help with the Malwarebytes download.

I tried downloading ‘Malwarebytes Free’ by clicking the Free Antivirus Download button on this page but it installs a 14 day trial version instead.

Am I clicking the wrong thing to download the free Malwarebytes? Or maybe I’m doing something wrong?

[Read more…]

Is your PC is acting weird? It’s probably malware.

Posted on May 28, 2025

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Has your computer started acting weird all of a sudden? For example…

Do web pages take forever to load?

Are you getting irritating pop-ups on a regular basis?

Does your browser load strange pages that you didn’t intentionally visit?

Has your home page or default search engine been mysteriously changed without your permission?

If you answered yes to one or more of the above questions, your PC is probably infected with malware. [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I find out how much data each app on my PC is using?

Posted on May 26, 2025

Question from Gary: My ISP has notified me that I have exceeded the monthly data allotment for my Internet plan and that I might have to pay extra this month.

I don’t understand this because I only use the Internet for about 1 to 2 hours per day and I don’t do much streaming at all other than watching an occasional YouTube video.

I only have one computer using my WiFi connection. No phones or tablets use WiFi, just this one computer. There is nothing connected via a wired connection either.

I’m hoping you can help me find out what’s using all that data? [Read more…]