Re: THANK YOU

JOBE, while you can get a virus from a website, it is not very common. 95% of all viruses these days come from attachments to emails. NEVER, ever open an email attachment unless you know the person who sent it to you AND you were absolutely, positively expecting them to be sending you an attachment. Even at that, it is a good idea to reply to the email asking the sender if he/she really intended to send you the attachment in question. Also, be especially careful of attachments that have filenames ending with .exe .com .bat .pif and .vbs. Only in very rare cases are they legitimate.

Assuming you are using a Microsoft operating system and Internet Explorer, click on the "Tools" menu at the top and then click on "Windows Update" on that menu. This will take you to Microsoft's update website. On this site, click on the link for "Product Updates". You will then get a listing of all available updates to the operating system you are running. Be sure to download and install all updates labeled either as "critical" or as "security". These updates are designed to prevent the execution of "malicious code" -- i.e. viruses, worms, trojan horses, etc. -- from websites and certain types of email attachments. You should check this website every month or two. There is no charge for these updates.

Lastly, spend the $30 or $40 for a good anti-virus program from a company such as McAfee or Symantec (Norton).

Sorry this is off-topic, but I'm still surprised by how many people there are who don't know how to take these simple preventative steps.

Or you can do something even more radical which I'm sure our forum moderator would endorse -- switch to Linux! Never worry about a virus again -- at least until Linux becomes popular enough that people decide it's worth their while to start coding viruses for that operating system. That will be a while yet.