Comments on: Safety Tips For Online Shopping This Christmas Season

By: Billy

Billy — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:45:41 +0000

The wifi part is disturbing…wonder when it will be secure??? Thanks for the GREAT tips!

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:30:21 +0000

Sorry to hear about that Don. Good point on the backup software and external drives. I’m actually planning on upgrading my OS soon, so I need to back everything up just in case. I plan on buying a larger drive though, because my current external drive won’t hold another image, plus the data I currently have stored.

By: Don@MoneyReasons

Don@MoneyReasons — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:49:37 +0000

Unfortunately that happened to me on my home laptop.

Luckily, I use a free ghost-like software package call “DriveImage XML” (if your interested, it’s at http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm), and so I was able to restore my laptop’s image from a weekly backup.

I think that everybody should consider using some kind imaging software weekly (or at least monthly), in addition to backups… you never know when a virus/spyware could hit. Plus the external drives are sooo cheap now. At best buy, you can get a 1 Terabyte drive for about $100 to $150 dollars.

By: Financial Samurai

Financial Samurai — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:23:09 +0000

Wow, has someone really gotten FIRED from their job shopping online?? Tell me that ain’t so. Reprimanded, maybe, but fired? I don’t believe it.

By: Don@MoneyReasons

Don@MoneyReasons — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:09:11 +0000

Thanks for the tips. I also make sure my antivirus software is current too. It might even be a good idea to do a full disk scan at least once before shopping online.

Some spyware programs are pretty clever now too. Some will change the host file on your computer, so that even though you type www[dot]famousStoreName[dot]com, it still will redirect to the bad guy’s site without you knowing. Norton and Mcafee usually detect most of them! It’s not a bad idea to check your host file ever blue moon just to make sure.

By: Manshu

Manshu — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:59:45 +0000

These are good tips, and a nice reminder too. I used to be really careful with online shopping, but have become a little lax these days. Even then I feel good that I am not doing any of the don’ts in this list.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:49:10 +0000

Thanks for the tip, Don. I had one of those viruses on my work computer once and it hijacked all search engine results. It was so bad they had to ghost the hard drive and give me another one. The company changed their antivirus software shortly afterward because it was missing a lot of viruses.