I have, somewhere in my brain, a metric that I use to determine whether downloading and installing software is going to be hazardous to my computer. I acquired it by working in tech support for many years, one of which was spent at Sento on the McAfee account. Apparently it's very good because, although I have used Windows for my desktop machines almost exclusively, I do not make it a habit to use AV programs and I have not been infected once since I got the job at Sento back in 2001 or so.
But for most people - my family members specifically - putting in a year working tech support just to learn how not to install stupid crap on their system isn't practical. I've tried communicating my virus-metric to them, but have so far failed completely. (Usually I say things like "If it seems suspicious, don't click it." We clearly have different standards for suspicious.) I'd like to put together a short article or white paper that will give casual computer users the tools to tell what's going to mess up their system and what isn't. The problem is that, while I can tell what's dodgy and what isn't, I don't know how I can tell. Can anyone here help me out with this? Thanks, Dan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
