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On 16/06/13 11:10, Daniel Robinson wrote: > I clicked, stupidly - as i thought i could trust links submitted by the > list and i thought at the time it could have been of interest to me. > Fortunately avg thwarted it and i was able to click back. > If we are going to link malware and the such could we please advise others > what we are clicking. Ta > Looks like someone learnt a lesson today, my friend. Don't EVER click on any link, from any source, that you are not willing to take the responsibility for when it eats your data, destroys your computer and sets fire to your cat. On the internet there is no such thing as trust, unless perhaps you are utilising full-on encryption with a small group of people completely known to you and with whom you have exchanged asymmetric keys. If you are using a Windows computer - which evidently you are - and clicking on random links in a mostly unvetted mailing list, you need to do some serious re-evaluating. Pro tips: Remove AVG from your system immediately, it is a clusterf*ck and completely useless. You evidently have the link scanning component operational as well, which actually makes my head hurt. What are you thinking? I regularly evaluate and compare tens of antivirus and security software products in the Windows ecosystem from freebies to enterprise level big bucks solutions and like to think I'm a bit of an expert in the area. Trust me: whilst AVG isn't quite as awful as Norton it's very close, and equally as resource-sucking and intrusive. Purge it from your system (doesn't matter if you paid for it and have months left on your subscription: accept it as wasted money and move on) and get the Microsoft Security Essentials package straight from their website. It's free, low in resource demands and hands down the best all-purpose security tool on Windows short of the really serious stuff. Keep it up to date, get a bit smarter about your browsing habits and you're good to go. You'll save money, be just as safe and your computer will run faster. You can thank me later :] Install a hypervisor of some kind, if you haven't already got one. VirtualBox, the free VMWare Player, Hyper-V (if you're on Win8) or whatever else you fancy. Slap a quick install in it - even a Windows VM is fine - and use that for hardened browsing. Ideally you'll get the preferably Linux VM fully updated and pimped up with Tor, adblocking, etc and then you simply snapshot in a known-good configuration. Fire it up whenever you want to check dodgy links, test software of dubious origin, etc, safe in the knowledge that when you've finished you can shut down the VM and restore it automatically to it's pristine, uninfected state by discarding all post-snapshot changes. Whilst we're at it, immediately disable WPS on your router and kill the UPnP service with fire: do your port forwarding manually. This is all Security 101, aka: "check yourself before you wreck yourself". AVG indeed... I'm still chuckling. Regards -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq