Is it Safe to Download Computer Software from the Internet?

Is it Safe to Download Computer Software from the Internet?

I used to ask myself this question a lot of times before, having a computer at home being so “techie” can somewhat be a problem sometimes.

In my own opinion, there are quite a few things that you have to consider before sticking your USB device and begin downloading files over the Internet. There is only one thing I can tell you, BE CAREFUL!

I have had bad experiences with it before, when I had my laptop, of course I was too eager to put a lot of software in my device that I didn't bother to check if those were malwares or if there is a virus hidden underneath that software. I would get a software that is empty, or there were software that like, said contained malicious contents (malwares) and there were some that were really to obvious, that you'd have to be stupid to download it.

Before you start to download, check the site, look if it is reliable, if it is updated, or if it is a big website like ZDnet, Cnet (download.com), freedownloadcenter. Now, I mentioned this sites because I have tried downloading softwares from these sites before.

What I like about these sites is that they have a concern for the users who download from their site, you can see software reviews, you can see if it is freeware or if they would charge you if you download a particular software.

So, my answer to that question is NO, it is not safe to download computer softwares from the Internet, that is if you yourself is complacent about it, then you would be likely to get computer viruses from the Internet, and believe me, you will be having a hard time getting rid of that virus if it gets into your computer.

I would say it is not SAFE to download stuff from the computer if:

Your computer doesn't have a reliable Antivirus installed on it.

Your antivirus is not set on active, you should put your antivirus on active status all the time.

You download software from an unknown host, or from a malicious server.

You don't check for reviews, always look for comments about the software, there is always a comment, if it is a good software, people will gonna comment on it, if it is not then nobody has tried it downloading it, if it is a virus, then you are most likely to see negative comments about it. SO CHECK!

If you don't see a thumbnail on it, and it is not rated, then it is most likely to be a malware, or a virus for that matter.

(And when you find such, then you found out it is ok, then leave a comment, help other users, let them know that it is a good software, better yet make a review about it.)

So there you go, you might be thinking, so "it isn't that scary to download software from the Internet after all". Of course it is not scary, if you follow certain procedures, it's all up to you if you will not be cautious with it.

Week in review: Net theft, under your nose

A new type of banking Trojan horse actually steals money from your account while you are logged in and displays a fake balance.

The bank Trojan, dubbed URLZone, has features designed to thwart fraud detection systems that are triggered by unusual transactions. For instance, the software is programmed to calculate on-the-fly how much money to steal from an account based on how much money is available.

The Trojan, which exploits a hole in Firefox, Internet Explorer 6, IE7, IE8, and Opera, was responsible of the theft of nearly $438,000 during a 22-day span in August.

This is reportedly the first Trojan that hijacks a victim's browser session, steals the money while the victim is doing online banking, and then covers its tracks by modifying information displayed to the victim, all in real time.

Meanwhile, Payroll processor PayChoice said it is investigating a breach in which customers received targeted e-mails purporting to be from the company but were designed to trick people into downloading malware. Workers received e-mails last week that directed them to download a browser plug-in or visit a Web site so they could continue accessing the Onlineemployer.com PayChoice portal.

The e-mails were targeted to individuals and included their user names, log-in IDs and partial passwords, thus increasing the chance that recipients would be likely to fall for the ruse.

Read Complete Story at Cnet.com.