221–230 of 242 posts
For those who don't like command line, there is WingetUI: https://github.com/marticliment/WingetUI
We should abandon old, inefficient and now dangerous habits.
The malvertisement thing has become real bad. The other day I had a problem so I used chrome, where I unfortunately hadn't installed an add blocker yet. I searched for my bank (I know, I should have put the URL in directly, but I was being lazy since it was a new chrome install and I didn't have the url in my history yet). I hit the first link, logged in (my password manager would have saved me here, but again it was…
This is why the appeal-to-ethics argument against adblocking holds no weight with me. Yes, maybe I stole $0.0001 from the publisher by not looking at an advert. But I also didn't have my bank password stolen and my files cryptolockered. It's a small price to pay for security.
Ethics is a two-way street.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The search results are not the problem. The ads are. Ads are placed above search results, so users are more likely to be mislead by them. Installing an ad blocker removes the misleading ads, leaving only the legitimate search results.
Not entirely, unfortunately, at least on my experience. Putting the keyword "download" after the name of software, ebooks, or music will lead into weird websites that distribute malware, and they rank very high. I just tried searching for an old Game Programming book I happen to have. There's two piracy sites, then one site with a "Download" button that gives me a DMG with an executable. Those are above Archive.org,…
piracy is a known vector for distributing malware.
this is more for general searches or software with no paid option.
google should deindex scam sites, but this is easier said than done. however they should NEVER have paid ads for malware as they're directly profiting from malware
The malvertisement thing has become real bad. The other day I had a problem so I used chrome, where I unfortunately hadn't installed an add blocker yet. I searched for my bank (I know, I should have put the URL in directly, but I was being lazy since it was a new chrome install and I didn't have the url in my history yet). I hit the first link, logged in (my password manager would have saved me here, but again it was…
This is why the appeal-to-ethics argument against adblocking holds no weight with me. Yes, maybe I stole $0.0001 from the publisher by not looking at an advert. But I also didn't have my bank password stolen and my files cryptolockered. It's a small price to pay for security.
It’s about time for her to upgrade anyway. I’m going to encourage her to get a new $599 Mac Mini. Yes I know there is nothing inherently more secure about the Mac than your typical Windows computer besides perhaps code signing. But isn’t targeted as heavily.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And governments are doing their best to break the app stores, destroying even the basic safely mechanisms such stores can offer. This should be taken as instructive, but is ignored by most.
What a strange argument - with this they're actually opening the market to stores that will ensure secure products like F-Droid with their guarantee for opensource. If anything, the current situation where BOTH Apple and Google store are ridden with malware and poor software doesn't work. We didn't fix SourceForge problems by allowing a megacorp to kill all competition and enshrine that cesspool, but by creating new…
All the more reason to use an adblocker. Online ads are the most common way that malware gets injected into otherwise trustworthy websites.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I checked for that multiple times as I was around when that happened. It was an ad served up directly by Google that lead to a phishing website and phone numbers on it. His filter bubble is very different from mine, and it's clear that the peddlers of malware and scams use ad targeting to hit the elderly with ads that try to take advantage of them. This is a major downside of ad targeting: they're more effective…
I increasingly believe that there are no legitimate uses of micro-targeted ads and only harmful ones. The only real distinction is whether or not it is harmful to the target (user), the advertiser (failed impressions), and/or the advertisement network (Google allowing malware companies to spend pennies on the dollar to sell bad software malware launchers in turn makes Google look bad). Micro-targeting may go down as…
As ownership of content platforms is disconnected from local communities, it becomes more profitable to engage in exploitative behaviour that would not be acceptable on a local scale. Computers simply don't care if you trust them or not, and we the programmers have yet to make that an important factor in how platforms decide which content is promoted to end users.
I have no idea how to improve this situation outside of legislation by our governments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I checked for that multiple times as I was around when that happened. It was an ad served up directly by Google that lead to a phishing website and phone numbers on it. His filter bubble is very different from mine, and it's clear that the peddlers of malware and scams use ad targeting to hit the elderly with ads that try to take advantage of them. This is a major downside of ad targeting: they're more effective…
You gave me a fantastic insight Ive been wondering why a loved one is constantly getting phishing emails. Ive been fighting a losing battle using email filters to contain the phishing fraud emails. Your post gave me the idea to clean up his browsing caches. Thank you