Hmm well the short (as compared to tall) answer is that some places screen software for extra crap. If you use chrome or firefox get a addon called web of trust as a start. Cnet and Zdnet are midling, but a start for where to get safe software. Anecdotally I don't like how either of those will try to add extra "needed" crap- but it's (generally) safe to not agree to installing it.
detailed answers: Depending on what you do, and if it's in your price range Macbook. MacOS apps are way less prone to junk (anecdotally). Otherwise since your likely using windows box get a antivirus program, they help MS Security Essentials or Avast Anti Virus (free version) are a start.Norton, Zonealarm eta are also a option. For back ups I used Norton Ghost, seemed to work. Shadow Protect gets good reviews, I don't know if they still have a demo to it. That said anecdotally the Cnet shareware i've gotten doesn't tend to have virii- but does have add-attachments wich is obnoxous. A smart-arse saideth to me: "Windows 8? The only virus people willingly install" On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 6:59 AM, Marcus G. Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com> wrote: > Open source software is less to have spyware or viruses. That’s because > the software is in its preferred high-level form – the recipe is > published. Proprietary software, in contrast, is delivered as a binary. > To know whether bad stuff is in a binary program, a difficult decompilation > and reverse engineering process is needed to get back to something like the > preferred form. Like having to run spectroscopy to find out what is in a > cake. In the open source case, you just bake your own cake. If you know > the ingredients are plausible, and the structure of the recipe makes sense, > then you can feel good about having a piece of cake. And even if you are > not a baker, you may know some bakers that can give an opinion on the > recipe . That doesn’t mean there aren’t bugs or bad oversights, but > malicious behavior is harder to hide. > > > > *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Nick > Thompson > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 02, 2014 9:43 PM > *To:* Friam > *Subject:* [FRIAM] Source Forge, inter alia > > > > Sorry, everybody. > > > > I guess my question could be stated more broadly, with perhaps some saving > of your time in the long run. How do I decide if a piece of software, > available on the internet is safe or not? I guess one can look for reviews > on “reputable” sites, but then how does one recognize a reviewing site as > reputable. ? I suppose one could look at the webpage of the software maker > and see if the software is being regularly updated, etc. What about the > site on which the software is hosted? Does that give a clue Does Source > Forge screen it’s software? If so, I couldn’t see any sign of that on the > Source forge page. > > > > Perhaps if one of you would provide an answer to me on this general > question, it would you all being bothered by particular versions of it > later on. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Nick > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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