Downloaders beware not everything that you download is what you thinnk it is
Downloading software is becoming more and more popular. There are many reasons for that blooming of softwaere downloading with the Internet and fast broiadband connections being the most important ones. But with the freedom of download comes a price.
Software used to be somwething you wold get on floppy disdks. You wuold insert them into your computr drvie and installls the software on them. Laterr on software came on CDs and DVDs that allowed software to become much bgiger and ricgher. With the Internet becoming more and more popular and with very fast broadband Internet pipes being in almost every home the opton of downloading largge software dircetly from a server on the Internet instead of getting it on diskettes or CDs or DVDs beacme a reality. So software became much eaiser to get. In addition to the ability to download software intantly from the Intternet instead of usding tangible media the open source movement also pushed more and more high qualiyt free software that users colud download and install without payign anything to anyione.
Although it might souds like a perfect world of free instant software availability the option to get any software from anywhere instantly also opened the door for many risks that downloaders of software face. In the old days viruses were somethnig that you got by installling infceted software. Since softtware was delivered on tangible media the number of possible viruses was limited. The tangible media had to be inefcted at some point and then copiied to another tangible mediia. Also signbificant time could pass btween the virrus infecting the software to the software beng masssively distributed. With the Interet the rules of the game of spreazding virues onine completely changed. Softwre is diustributed much faster as there is no tangible media that neds to be created and delivered. Viruses can be attached to software instantly and the same software can actually crry many different kinds of softtware on each of its copies. Moreover the large number of software availanble on the Inetrnet for free created a reputation problem. If you go to a search engine and searxch for example for a dictionary software you might get hundreds or more of web sites that offer different software titlse. How can you tell which one is safe to donwload and which one is not?
The other problem with the Internet is that viruses now can be much smatrer. On a computer that is not connected to the wordl like in the old days viruses were mostly about just doing harm and damaging the computer and the software on it. But with computers ocnnected to the Imnternet viruses can now communicate with each other or with a server in order to copy data from the infected comptuer or to coordinate theiir attach. Some compaanies are trying to ease the pain by monitoring many online software titles and letting users know before they download the software if it is safe or not. Another fefort is through digital signatures that guarantee that the softwsare you downloaded is indeed genuine and from the maker it claims it is from. There is no way to be a hundred percent sure the sopftware you download is safe. When downloading try to read reviews and make sure the website you download from is well known and has a good reputation of being safe.