MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Why chdman is trying to connect to internet??

> In terms of my desktop usage of Linux, I have never had any kind of trojan, worm, or
> virus on my system, after 17 years.

And? Having used Windows in many flavours since 1996 (close to 15 years now), I have never had any kind of trojan or virus on any of my systems. The only one time I ended up with malware, the W32.Blaster worm, was when I used a key generator (aha!) for some stupid, non-free, crippled trial program* which I can't remember, back in 2001. Since that was caused by my own stupidity at the time, I accept my defeat. Regardless of whether anyone uses Windows, Linux, Mac OS X or an amber screen dumb terminal from 1987, there will be malware programs out there for them. I think the last time I used a virus scanner or similar programs was in around 2004.

* All the more reason to switch to open source. No fscking crippleware or half-assed trial programs by big corporations thinking they're actually doing you a favour.

The main reason people end up with malware is usually by their own stupidity, or inexperience with computers and the lack of knowledge about malicious software until its too late. Even an eight year old using a default Windows install, with file extensions hidden, can tell the difference between the apparent JPEG images 'filename' and 'filename.jpg'. The former, will be called a JPEG Image by the system and show a preview of itself on the left, if it is a true JPEG image. The latter, will not show a preview of itself, and will be called an "Application", and may most likely have the wrong icon unless the malware programmers added the JPEG Image icon to their program. Additionally, attempting to open up an EXE file renamed to .JPG will open up a paint program, which will fail at loading the 'corrupt' image.

Again, it's the person's own inexperience or stupidity if they choose to immediately double click every file they download.

Edit: To add to that, my main PC is still using the same version of Windows XP it came with back in 2005. Never been reinstalled once. Using this OS just means that I can not install the latest and greatest things, simply because most MS programs/libraries themselves, required by other programs, are detecting a Windows version <6 and aborting their installation (hello new DirectX updates, Windows Live Messenger, Internet Explorer 9!). I vowed to never install another operating system on this PC, as a PC should be able to run its own pre-installed operating system throughout its perceived lifetime, since the whole system will most likely be obsolete by the time the OS needs updating. The only exception to this rule I ever used, was when 486 and upgrading Pentium 1 class PCs to Windows 98 SE, as Windows 95 simply lacks too much in the hardware and driver department (note that 98SE is still part of the Windows 4.x group though; 95, 98, 98SE and ME, not a completely different version like NT3.51>NT4.0>2000/XP(5.x)>Vista(6)>Win7).