Nicole, I've been in this business for decades, too, and have had my experiences with viruses, malware, etc. Everyone has to make their own decisions regarding what they will or will not do, and stick by them. I guess those that stick by "let me click any shiny link or attachment" are part of what keeps me in business!
I stand by my position, though, that compared to the early days, which are long gone, infections via direct download from e-mail are few and far between. Most I've been seeing in the last few years have been from malicious websites or getting ported on flash drives (and, even then, have only infected systems that are not set up to scan a flash drive as soon as it's plugged in). I'm not saying this applies to you, but I've seen people become crippled by paranoia because of one unfortunate incident. I try to tell my clients how to exercise whatever level of caution they prefer, but not to get so tied up that they are literally afraid to do anything related to a connection to the internet with their computer. Other than in rare cases, like yours where you're using old equipment completely unconnected to the internet by intention, there's little a home user can do with a computer these days unless there is internet connectivity. My antivirus, along with my knowledge of sources of material, is "trust but verify." Your take on the same thing is different. Brian
