Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Hello again. I hope you had a great week! I also hope you and your family have a joyous and safe time as you celebrate the 4th of July holiday weekend!
The big news this past week was the decision by Microsoft to finally give users a straightforward way to decline the free Windows 10 upgrade, once and for all.
It was a long time coming, but they finally came around to doing the right thing. [Read more…]
A new virus called PolloCrypt is making the rounds, and it’s a bad one.
PolloCrypt silently encrypts all the data on your hard drive, then demands that you pay a “ransom” of several hundred dollars to a group of hackers before they will decrypt your files so you can regain access to them.
“Ransomware” of this type certainly isn’t new, but this one is the latest strain of it to hit the streets so you need to be especially wary of it.
It has been reported that the hackers often fail to decrypt a victim’s files even after the ransom has been paid, so it’s wise to avoid getting the virus in the first place if at all possible.
Here are a few things you can do to protect yourself against the nasty PolloCrypt Ransomware Virus: [Read more…]
USB flash drives have made the process of transferring files between one PC and another the easiest that it has ever been. Simply plug the drive into one PC, copy the desired files to it, then plug it into the 2nd PC and copy the files to the hard drive. It’s a fast and easy process.
But this convenience comes at a high potential cost. Plug a thumb drive into a computer that’s infected with a virus and that virus can hitch a free ride right onto your own PC’s hard drive. [Read more…]
If you visited the popular financial news website Forbes.com between November 28 and December 1, 2014, your PC might possibly be infected with a virus.
First the good news: If you are diligent about keeping Internet Explorer up to date by installing all available updates as soon as they become available, you should be in the clear.
And still better news: If you use Firefox, Chrome, or any other non-IE browser you were definitely safe from this particular attack. [Read more…]
Well, there’s yet another extremely dangerous scam making the rounds on Facebook, and it’s an easy one to fall for. It goes something like this…
You’re scrolling through your Facebook news feed when an interesting video catches your attention. You click on it to watch it, but instead of the video you’re presented with a warning that your computer’s Flash Player is out of date and needs to be updated. Well, it doesn’t. [Read more…]