Once you're known as computer-literate to your friends and acquaintances, inevitable questions arise, along with true confessions. Do I know how to clear the browsing history? Someone accidentally opened the wrong sites. What's the age group targeted by the dating service Tinder? Recently, I suddenly became all ears: an ex-colleague, who's been enjoying his retirement for quite some time, was looking for a potent graphics card. What he wanted it for? "I want to play Battlefield." I didn't expect that. And it got even more interesting.
The most widely used browser in the world already comes with a load of features. But that doesn't stop smart developers from enhancing it even further with extensions to make it more versatile, more comfortable - just easier to use. You could spend days digging through the store but I'd like to present 7 extensions you might get used to quickly.
There are no zombies - even though photos from Ashampoo's last Christmas party may suggest otherwise. But the term zombies also describes PCs that are infected with malware and waiting to be remotely controlled. If a cyber criminal manages to infect thousands of machines, he'll own a so-called botnet and will have the means to create a lot of chaos - and make a lot of money. Often, computer owners notice little to nothing of this hostile takeover and that's part of the plan. The longer infections remain undetected, the longer affected machines can be used for murky business. Read on to learn what botnets are, how they're created and what you can do about them.
When I was little, we got a whopping 3 different TV channels and they signed off after midnight. My grandmother's TV was black and white and when the weather was bad you'd hardly be able to see the ball during soccer matches. Every now and then an amazing Hollywood flick was on and we all gathered in front of the box in awe. What sounds like a relic from the past was little more than 40 years ago. And it may serve to explain why the entertainment industry was initially leaping forward while much of the latest technology has yet to catch on with customers.
You know the situation: you're searching for a product and online reviews are staggering. "Wonderful device, works without a hitch, very sturdy even - I ordered another one for my kids! They were thrilled!" And so were their children's children, I guess. This and similar adulation pushed the product rating up to 4.8 out of 5 stars and now strongly motivates others to make the purchase. The system works because these are the opinions of real customers, real people like you and me. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.
