when to buy a new Macbook???

[Primejimbo]

I am in the same boat. I've never owned a Mac before, always Dell. My 2 year old Dell Laptop is dying on me. It has a really bad virus and I am not sure how I got it. I had it "fixed" for $130 and it's still not working right. I'm thinking it's going to die any day and I refuse to spend anymore money to fix it again. I am still caught between the Macbook and the Macbook Pro. I like the 13 inch screen better so that is probably the route I will be going. The only reason why I am holding off is because of the possibility of any updates as well. I understand the screen quality isn't that great in the new Macbooks so that has me holding off hoping within the next few months they will correct that along with fixing any other bugs that have been occuring with the new ones.

Go look at them in person, you might like the screens. I like it and I have no problems.

 

[Primejimbo]

Dell's website was hosting malicious javascript a few months ago. Even Google has hosted malicious javascript on its websites.

Hackers always infect websites that people trust.

I have a friend who runs a site and it got hacked, this can happen to anyone. I agree that you should always have protection on all PC's

 

[Davidkoh]

Dell's website was hosting malicious javascript a few months ago. Even Google has hosted malicious javascript on its websites.

Hackers always infect websites that people trust.

And how do you go about actually aquiring the malicious code then? It's not like you go to a webpage and boom you're infected. That was the case back in 98 when the browsers were crap. These days you can configure most browsers to not accept stuff at all.

I run a few virus scans now and then to make sure im not infected. And I haven't gotten a virus since... I dunno, more then 6-7 years ago.

If you are smart you do not get infected.

 

[Coulter]

And how do you go about actually aquiring the malicious code then? It's not like you go to a webpage and boom you're infected.

I can't account for every single piece of malicious javascript out there but the vast majority rely on browser exploits.

So in essence what the javascript does is scan what browser you have and what version.

It'll then query a server and ask for an exploit for your particular version of IE or Firefox for example.

Then once the server has said "Run XYZ" it'll download a Trojan from another hacked website/sever and execute it on your system using the exploit.

Once its done that if you have antivirus that has onread/write scanning it'll get caught and quarantined. If you don't have antivirus then all manner of crap will happen. Most likely your PC will become part of a botnet, you can google that if you want to know what one is, and send spam emails, help DoS attacks, host malware for the hackers, you'll basically act as a proxy for anything the hackers want to do.

Oh yeah it'll also steal credit card/banking information.

And yes the same can, and does, happen to unix/linux/osx based machines.