Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Do you ever receive files in your email inbox that you’re pretty sure are legit, but you’re still leery about opening them?
Well, with all the hacking, spoofing, phishing and malware distribution going on these days, you should be!
Folks send files to me all the time via email (after we discuss it in advance), but even if I trust the sender completely I still check the files out to make sure they’re safe and malware-free. [Read more…]
Let’s face it, computer viruses, trojans and other forms of malware are a fact of life.
Regardless of how carefully you try to avoid it there’s a good chance that your PC will become infected sooner or later.
Most pieces of malicious code can be quickly removed with a normal virus scan and cleanup, but some infections are so insidious that they are difficult to detect and remove with a regular scan.
Even worse, some strains of malware can even render your PC incapable of connecting to the Internet in order to download an updated virus definition file.
Others still will prevent your PC’s installed antivirus program from loading at all.
This is why you need a plan “B” – an emergency virus removal USB flash drive. [Read more…]
If you’ve been paying attention to the news of late, you probably know that the number of successful ransomware attacks on computers and mobile devices are increasing by the day.
Ransomware is a particularly insidious form of malware that encrypts all the files on your computer or mobile device, then holds your precious data hostage until you pony up and pay a monetary ransom to the hackers.
Once ransomware has locked up your machine, you’ll have no choice except to pay the ransom or you’ll have to say goodbye to your data forever. But… [Read more…]
Question from Kendra: Hi, Rick. I need to ask you a computer question.
I know this sounds silly, but it’s a serious question and I really need to know the answer.
Can a virus that’s on one drive jump onto another drive? [Read more…]
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Question from Patsy: My friend just bought a Chromebook after the salesman at the computer store told her they are safer to use than Windows computers.
Among other things, he said it’s impossible for a Chromebook to catch a virus.
I’d just like to know if you agree with him because I’m needing to get a new laptop myself.
So, are Chromebooks really safer than Windows laptops? [Read more…]