Some things you didn’t know about computer viruses.

It has come to my attention that a lot of people don’t actually understand computer viruses. Many people seem to think that computer viruses can affect any computer, and can somehow be avoided by not visiting “shady” sites.

Let me clear something up for you: Computer viruses (and I mean actual VIRUS viruses)affect Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Linux, and the countless other operating systems are completely unaffected. The fact is that in order for an operating system, like windows, to get a virus it needs to have practically no security at all.

Furthermore you can’t avoid viruses by avoiding “shady” sites. Think about that for a second. What counts as “shady”? How does the computer know if it’s on a shady site? The fact is that it doesn’t know. Any web page could have a virus on it. Even the Google search page could have a virus on it. The only reason it doesn’t is because Google would never do such a thing. Also by the time that the page loads enough for you to see that it’s “shady” it’s already too late. The virus is in place because, and I can’t believe I have to actually tell this to technologically literate people, computers are really fast.

If you’re wondering “then how is it that I don’t have a virus?” the answer is that you most likely do and just don’t know it. Think about this for a second: If you were writing a virus, why would you want the user to know that they’ve caught your virus? Wouldn’t it be smarter to have it hide in the background until just the right time?

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