Tired of all those stupid emails filling your inbox with warnings that the government is about to turn your cellphone number to telemarketers or that a new malicious virus is circulating the globe that Avast!, Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky Labs or other leading antivirus companies cannot figure out.
Urban Legends are just about everywhere these days; they cover just about every topic you can imagine. Thankfully most are simply untrue.
Just because they?re untrue doesn?t stop unsuspecting internet users from helping to proliferate the absurd claims of those who first authored the practical joke email. Keep in mind some warnings are real, but in most cases they will come from a practical reliable source (like an AVS company if about a new circulating virus, for example), and typically won?t be circulated by an unending number of ?forwards?.
A real danger with forwarding email is that you can either intentionally or inadvertently forward a virus to another user. Thankfully this doesn?t happen with any level of regularity.
Before you forward that next email that was forwarded to you after being forwarded to a friend – check it out for authenticity. Follow these simple rules….
1.) Is the message from someone you know?
2.) Did you receive it directly or was it forwarded?
3.) How many people do you know on the forward list?
4.) Can you determine who started the first message?
5.) Search the internet to see if anyone else is talking about it.
I regularly use SNOPES.COM and TRUTHORFICTION.COM whenever I receive a forwarded email from family or friends claiming that something climatic is about to happen. I wish others would also take the time to do the same. In most cases, you?ll find the concept behind the email is FALSE and that it has been circulating the internet for many many years.
Safe Surfing!
If you don?t have a current antivirus program and a good firewall, you?ve got bigger things to worry about. If you can afford a paid program like Symantec, Norton AntiVirus, McAfee, F-Secure or Kaspersky Internet Security that the way to go. If you?re short on resources check out Avast! or AVG both which offer free basic versions of their antivirus programs. Avast can be downloaded either at www.avast.com or www.download.com and they offer a MAC Edition. AVG can be downloaded at www.filehippo.com.
