Pop-ups, MySpace and Facebook

applications can be pitfalls, expert says.

POULSBO — Poulsbo resident Ann Randall didn’t leave anything to chance when it came to her computer. She armed it with anti-virus software and a spam filter set to ‘high.’

So when a pesky pop-up advertisement appeared on her screen, she figured it was a fluke.

“I got a pop-up window, which I don’t ever get,” she said. “I went to the upper right hand corner, where the ‘X’ is, where you can delete it out.”

But another pop-up quickly took the first one’s place, and soon her screen rebounded with a number of the invasive bubbles. Randall rebooted her system, but even that didn’t do the trick, and soon her machine refused to operate as it should.

“I knew then that I had a bigger problem. I knew it was some kind of virus,” she said.

Her diagnosis was correct. In her case, the computer’s data was mostly salvaged after a $500 new hard drive purchase, but not all of the estimated 178 million online users are so lucky.

Poulsbo PC and Technology technician Tracy Bledsoe said pop-up close out buttons have been wreaking havoc for some time, though many may not realize their danger.

“You never want to select the ‘X’ or ‘To close window click here,’” he said. Instead, the safest way to shut down the unwanted notices is a right-click on the item in the task bar at the bottom of the screen. From there, click on the ‘close’ option, he said.

With the start of school and cooler weather Internet usage may be on the rise, but popular sites such as Facebook and MySpace aren’t trouble-free, Bledsoe said.

According to Facebook, the site hosts 100 million active users and is the fourth most trafficked Web site in the world. More than half of its users are not in college. Facebook is the No. 1 photo-sharing application on the Web, it states.

Bledsoe said the problem isn’t so much the sites themselves, “It’s actually what they (users) do to create their site.”

Applications users add to their profiles, including backgrounds and forms of file sharing, can install viruses in a computer.

He also recommended keeping a heads up for greeting card e-mails that are known to infect a computer’s address book. Be aware when navigating unfamiliar Web pages. The most recent anti-viruses to hit computers take away administrative controls. To prevent, he said there are several free programs available he’d recommend before store-bought software which can slow a computer to a crawl.

“Some of the best programs out there are actually free programs,” he said, listing AVG, Spybot Search and Destroy 1.6 and ZoneAlarm.

If a computer is infected, it’s best not to wait.

“You want to get it cleaned up as soon as possible,” Bledsoe said. “The longer it sits on your machine the longer it affects your system files. … It literally starts peeling away the administrative controls of the operating system.”

A 2007 Harris Poll states people spend an average of 11 hours online each week, up from nine hours in 2006. Seventy-nine percent of adults — or four in five — are now online and both home and work usage are increasing.

For more information on Poulsbo PC and Technology, visit poulsbopc.com or call (360) 697-7015.