Click Happy? Be Careful!
Some people are click happy. They click on ads, off-site links, and things they shouldn’t click. Are you one of those people? If so, here are some guidelines to keep your information and your computer safe.
The majority of sites on the internet, this site is no exception, use ads to offset the time and money put into the site. Sometimes the ads are labeled. Sometimes they aren’t labeled. An easy way to find out is to run your mouse over them and look in the status bar. If the status bar starts the same as the address bar, you’re pretty safe that it’s not an ad.
Don’t get me wrong, ads can be quite useful. Personally, I would never click on an ad unless I knew it was a google ad or knew the site was reputable. When I say reputable, I mean an organization or person who filters the ads, such as <a href=”http://www.thesimpledollar.com/”>The Simple Dollar</a>.
Those listing at the top of search results are hardly ever what you need, but when they are you should use those. The listings at the very top are paid for, and clicking on them helps the search engine to earn some much needed money.
Finally, there are plenty of malicious sites out there. They want you to visit their site using IE6 pre-XPSP2, if you don’t have SP2 DOWNLOAD IT NOW. When you do, they install software that tracks your every click and keystroke. It’s pretty scary if you ask me. I wouldn’t want someone to know my login information for <a href=”http://www.amazon.com”>Amazon</a> or much less <a href=”http://www.paypal.com/”>PayPal</a> or <a href=”http://www.wachovia.com/”>Wachovia</a>.
Just do as FOX says, and PAUSE. If you do this enough, you’ll find yourself checking to see where you are and where you are going on the internet. Not only will your computer be happier, you will feel more secure in your computer usage.
Note: I put all these links in this post to show you what your status bar will say when you run your mouse over them. All sites linked from this site are reputable. I would never subject any of my readers to malicious sites.
