That is a direct quote from a Freshman in college that I helped with her computer today. She purchased it just three days ago and already has Lime Wire installed. For those not familiar with Lime Wire, it is a service that many people use (especially college aged kids) to download free music, movies and more. In addition to be legally questionable (or downright illegal by some accounts), downloading free music is the single best way to completely screw-up a normally functioning computer.
Over the years, when we got calls from listeners with “slow computers”, our first question was “do you have any teenagers in the house?”. The reason we asked was that most unrestrained teenagers with Internet access will eventually install programs like Lime Wire and start downloading the free stuff.
The problem is that when a computer user downloads these “free” songs and movies, some nifty little software that hoses your computer comes along with them. These programs are known as spyware and adware. What these little gems do is install other programs on your computer that cause pop-ups, send spam out from your computer among other things that all slow down and muck up your computer.
Even if you keep all the latest security software updates and scans going on a computer, these behaviors contribute to computer going to the dogs. Those “free” downloads can rapidly turn 99 cents into hundreds of dollars in repair work, and lots of spilled tears over lost data if backups weren’t done.
Comments are closed.