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That's why in the post where I asked about it, I said "different subject." Shouldn't have put the question in an antivirus thread but wanted to catch the same audience.
Thank you for reminding me - I forgot about CCleaner. That's something else I need to download.
Thank you everyone, for your thoughts on this. I appreciate all the feedback. I think I'll go ahead and just download Malwarbytes then, activate Defender, and uninstall Avast.
When you say "ads" do you mean those things that come on and say, "How about updating Avast to a better version (meaning paid)" or do you mean actual advvertisements that sometimes come on when you're loading some site or other. I've been getting those lately and wondering about them.
The first one. I use an ad blocker for the others.
Can you give us some concrete examples and bits of advice about what exactly to avoid? I understand about all those "you have a new message from XX bank or company, click here to view" things. But what else? Shopping sites? Hard to avoid those if you want to live in today's world. Things on FB? When you say "plugins and extensions" what exactly do you mean? Non-techie talking here.
Can you give us some concrete examples and bits of advice about what exactly to avoid? I understand about all those "you have a new message from XX bank or company, click here to view" things. But what else? Shopping sites? Hard to avoid those if you want to live in today's world. Things on FB? When you say "plugins and extensions" what exactly do you mean? Non-techie talking here.
Non-techie here, too. I like to say I learned a lot about computers on my own, but that doesn't make me at all smart about them. What it does do is leave big holes in my understanding of computers. Some things I understand perfectly; other things I know absolutely nothing about.
Here's some help, since vision seems to be leaving you high and dry:
- you must download and install browser extensions. Don't. You probably don't need them. If you must have one, get it from a reputable source. If you don't know which sources are reputable, just stop and do nothing.
- websites: If you're looking for sketchy material such as p**n, you're looking for infection. Wh where links take you. You can usually see the link destination by mouse over and looking at the bottom of your browser. Chrome does this well.
- email is your biggest risk. Do not click on links in email unless you are absolutely sure of the source/sender, no matter how enticing it sounds. Delete strange emails, especially from people you know, that have links. If you get an email from a known legit business with a link, best to ignore the link and go direct to the business website.
Some of the above is to avoid "drive-by downloads". You can read more by searching for that term and going to the wikipedia entry.
OK I already do (or don't do) all of those things. So maybe I should be not so bad off. The only thing I don't really understand about is browser extensions - don't really know what they are - so I'm going onto Google to try and educate myself.
Tks for the suggestions!
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