johmue:

Christa627:But more seriously, everyone knows that viruses are caught by opening spam emails, downloading assorted junk, and frequenting sites that have .ru at the end. My brother does stuff like that; that's why he gets so many viruses; but I don't do that, so I don't.

You are describing only some ways to get infected. There are many others. Infected USB-sticks for example.

USB sticks? Haven't used one of those in years; almost forgot they existed.

You simply can not say "I don't do ..., so I don't get viruses." If you have used WindowsXP recently

Yeah, recently, as in hours a day, almost every day, for the past couple years, and somewhat less often before that...

you should consider your machine infected. Probably it's spreading viruses, spam, participating in ddos attacks and maybe even nastier criminal activities. It's your responsibility to stop or tolerate that.

So you're telling me, that just by being on the internet, using Lernu, for example, I am probably picking up and/or dispersing viruses. Sorry dude, but I'm a little skeptical. It's true that I know basically nothing about computer science. I don't even know what ddos means. But, it seems to me that I would have to be doing something other than simply browsing non-spammy websites, in order for someone to involve my computer in their malicious activity. If I am wrong, can someone please explain, in layman-friendly terms, how this is not the case?

Maybe it's a good time to take a look at Linux.

Well, I'm not familiar with Linux. I've been using Windows XP for as long as I can remember; I've used Vista and Win8 some, but not nearly as much. And I really much prefer the aesthetics and features of XP. One of my favorite things, that is lacking in the newer systems, is the "textured flag" screensaver; I have mine using the Esperanto flag as it's texture . If I were to switch to Linux, would it be possible to have that, as well as other features I'm used to, such as the start menu, and the way of navigating file systems? The one and only experience I've ever had using Linux was trying out Ubuntu for a little while on one of my brother's computers. So, I don't really know anything about it. And I've always been reluctant to switch from the old and familiar to something new. Would I still be able to make Esperanto letters by using the x-system, as I do now with Tajpi? Because using the Ctrl key, as some have mentioned, is not exactly my idea of convenience.

Christa627:Would I still be able to make Esperanto letters by using the x-system, as I do now with Tajpi? Because using the Ctrl key, as some have mentioned, is not exactly my idea of convenience.

My setup is as follows: Standard English keyboard, and to get the supersign I do RightAlt + letter. To enable this, all you need is to click one keyboard settings menu item.

This doesn't slow down my typing at all; it's one extra keystroke, just like the Tajpi x-system.

If you don't like that, there is a pre-installed Esperanto layout where q, w, y, z and two other mostly-useless keys are replaced by the circumflexed letters. This way there are no extra keystrokes. And by pressing Alt+Shift you can jump back and forth between that layout and the customary English one.

There are many other ways of getting the circumflexes in Linux, but those are two popular (and easy) ones.

Right now?

~$ uname -a
Linux malagradecida 3.16.0-29-generic #39-Ubuntu SMP Mon Dec 15 22:27:29 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Slightly off topic.
Stashed away somewhere I have an XP machine with a dead screen driver.
What would be the easiest way to revive that machine using Linux, with a Windows emulator, so that my ISP will stay happy thinking I have a Windows machine, and so continuing to use my existing wireless broadband?

Christa627:So you're telling me, that just by being on the internet, using Lernu, for example, I am probably picking up and/or dispersing viruses.

That's it. WindowsXP in it's default installation had some open ports to make it easy for several XP-machines in one network to connect to each other. There is malware, scanning whole ranges of IP addresses looking for poorly maintained machines to infect them. Maybe someone is posting an infected image in the lernu forum and you are simply browsing the forums and ... bang. Similar for facebook, flickr, instagram, tumblr, you name it. Maybe a non-spammy website is infected and controlled by some criminal who is using it to deploy infrastructure for criminal activities on the machines of people coming along.

Windows XP in office.
Windows 8.1 on phone.
Fedora 20 KDE Linux at home.

////////

Windows XP laboreje.
Windows 8.1 telefone.
Fedora 20 KDE Linux dome.

johmue:

Christa627:So you're telling me, that just by being on the internet, using Lernu, for example, I am probably picking up and/or dispersing viruses.

That's it. WindowsXP in it's default installation had some open ports to make it easy for several XP-machines in one network to connect to each other.

What do you mean by the default installation? Of course, my XP has all the updates and security patches made up until the time they were discontinued, which wasn't all that long ago. I asked my brother, who works on computers, and he thinks I'm fine.

Maybe a non-spammy website is infected and controlled by some criminal who is using it to deploy infrastructure for criminal activities on the machines of people coming along.

My brother, aka Caleb the Computer Guru, says that Firefox can detect that.

For those who wonder: The thread also exists in Vidpunktoj (Link)

Christa627:

johmue:

Christa627:But more seriously, everyone knows that viruses are caught by opening spam emails, downloading assorted junk, and frequenting sites that have .ru at the end. My brother does stuff like that; that's why he gets so many viruses; but I don't do that, so I don't.

You are describing only some ways to get infected. There are many others. Infected USB-sticks for example.

Maybe it's a good time to take a look at Linux.

Well, I'm not familiar with Linux. I've been using Windows XP for as long as I can remember; I've used Vista and Win8 some, but not nearly as much. And I really much prefer the aesthetics and features of XP. One of my favorite things, that is lacking in the newer systems, is the "textured flag" screensaver; I have mine using the Esperanto flag as it's texture . If I were to switch to Linux, would it be possible to have that, as well as other features I'm used to, such as the start menu, and the way of navigating file systems? The one and only experience I've ever had using Linux was trying out Ubuntu for a little while on one of my brother's computers. So, I don't really know anything about it. And I've always been reluctant to switch from the old and familiar to something new. Would I still be able to make Esperanto letters by using the x-system, as I do now with Tajpi? Because using the Ctrl key, as some have mentioned, is not exactly my idea of convenience.

Both sides of this argument have some merit. I'm sure you're not using a fresh install of XP with no updates, so any vulnerabilities (not involving social engineering) have been patched up until a year ago. There are some government organizations and businesses still using XP (the Department of Labor still runs 10,000 XP machines). That being said, you are playing with fire considering you are only one mistake away from infection. If I were you I would install Flashblock and Adblock, and read the text of any hyperlink you are thinking about following before clicking on it. And all of your efforts can be for naught if an infected device touches your PC, or if a new vulnerability gets exploited.

If Linux is one thing, it's customizable. There is an interesting desktop theme called "NotXP" that emulates precisely the look and feel of XP, and it would be an easy install on Ubuntu: http://notxp.en.uptodown.com/ubuntu. I'm not sure about that exact screensaver, but I'm certain you could find something similar (or better). With Linux you can set the system language to Esperanto if you want. In Ubuntu you can have any number of keyboard layouts, and you can switch between them on the task bar or set a keyboard shortcut to do it. If your machine is older you can also install a lightweight Linux distribution to get better performance (with less fluff).

Christa627:

johmue:
Maybe a non-spammy website is infected and controlled by some criminal who is using it to deploy infrastructure for criminal activities on the machines of people coming along.

My brother, aka Caleb the Computer Guru, says that Firefox can detect that.

I wouldn't count on it. I whad an XP machine a few years ago at work, and with the latest Firefox at the time. One day I noticed that every first link that I clicked after a Google search would take me to an unrelated website (advertising something). This was obviously malware, but it was only being used to direct me to websites for various products as far as I know. It could have silently done much worse. This was when there were regular updates to XP.