A dose of reality

I use Facebook A LOT.  I'm on it several times a day, in fact, much to the neglect of my 3 blogs.

One afternoon I decided to download some music from Amazon (I have an account).  I tried and tried and I kept getting a message that said I didn't have Adobe Flash player.  EH?  I knew I did.  I've created several YouTube videos using Amazon (paid) MP3 songs.  So, I was puzzled.  I downloaded the newest version of Adobe Flash player (again), but still got the same message.

THEN I got a message that popped up (saying it was from Microsoft) telling me my computer had 2,787 issues and to click on it.

Uh, no thank you.  I knew better than that.

So, after a hasty phone call to our son (a computer geek), I was informed to get my grubby fingers OFF my laptop and to go read a book.  So I did.  Son called that night, did a complete scan, did a virus scan, did a malware scan, and located 3 suspicious items on my hard drive, one of which was...Candy Crush or some such stupid game which I NEVER downloaded.  He spent 2 hours isolating them and told me to stay OFF Facebook.  And, he informed me I had a worm, but he caught it in time and it didn't ransom my photos or damage my hard drive.  PHEW! 

So, I talked to him again yesterday afternoon.  I am now ONLY allowed to look at photos on Facebook and to never again click on links there.  I'm doing this post as a warning to you.  He says the Facebook links are VERY deceiving and they take you to fake websites where you can get a virus or a worm. So, unless you are confident of the site and the link, DON'T GO THERE!!!  I am allowed to share my photos there and LOOK at stuff, but ABSOLUTELY NO linking on links.  No more history quizzes.  No more "who would you be in the 18th century" stuff.  No more "Are you smarter than an English major?"  (I am...) quizzes.  I deleted a bunch of feeds, especially those from unreliable sources.  So, now my Facebook feeds are limited to the Washington Post, New York Times, and a few family members.  I have NO (zero) unknown, unmet friends now.  I did, however, re-friend my 2nd cousin.  And, he says, NO MORE DOWNLOADING photos from Google or other sources.  NO, NO!!!!!!   

So, I'm just passing alone this info to you.  I now run McAffee twice a week, and my Malware program twice a week and I SHUT DOWN my computer when it is not in use.

I need to find an online photo storage website OR have hubby remove my photos, since my son told me to get them OFF my computer or risk losing them forever.  I have about a year's worth of photos on my computer...the rest are already on an external hard drive.

I don't have any new photos to post right now, so this is a good time to clean up my desktop and get them on that external hard drive.

Please DO be careful out there...it is a foreign world for some of us.

Take care and BE COMPUTER SAFE!  I was lucky.  One of my colleagues and good friends DID get her computer hacked and received the ransom demand and she DID pay it and get her computer back, but I wouldn't want ANYBODY to go through that!!!!!
~Cheryl Ann~