Can Blogging Hurt your Computer?

[Merry]

I've noticed whenever I go to my blog, almost immediately I suffer a computer slow down. After a blog visit, my spyware scan picks up at least 10-12 items that shouldn't be there. Anyone else have this problem? I'm thinking perhaps since so many people have blogs, once you get into some kidn of network with them, then who knows what you could be picking up or from where...

[DrRita]

Merry, do you have the verification on there or is it open to anything such as spammers and such? Maybe they come, they visit, they leave friends behind??

[whitehawke]

I have FireFox and haven't got any nasties while using it. The only time I get nasties is whenever I use Internet Explorer. Seems FireFox blocks a lot of bad stuff. Admitedly though, FireFox does block some of the good stuff as well, but I can live with that. It would take a lot for me to go back to IE fulltime.

[Diannecp]

My PC is just slow, period! But I don't think blogging would make a difference - who knows, though!

[Merry]

Yup, I put verification on it...and still...hmmm....And I also use FireFox and most often the MAC. Again...hmmmm.......

[wgjones3]

Did you check to see if there was a nut loose behind the keyboard?

[ellenjames]

LOL, WG.

However, I've had my share of self-imposed problems. Thankfully, I've learned enough to save some crises!

Ellenjames

[Merry]

WG LOL! BTW, nice avatar....is that you?

Ellen...yeah, 'self-imposed' describes most crisis of mine rather nicely...

[wgjones3]

No, actually my Mr. Burns avitar was a photograph of me.

[MGalloway]

I've noticed whenever I go to my blog, almost immediately I suffer a computer slow down. After a blog visit, my spyware scan picks up at least 10-12 items that shouldn't be there.

In theory, blogging should not slow your computer down. I'm not sure how things work on the Mac, but on a PC (with Windows) you can look at the Task Manager, and check under the Processes tab to see which application is slowing your PC down. As far as your spyware scan picking up 10-12 items, are they actually installed programs that it is finding, or are they cookies? Cookies are not really a big deal, since they are more for tracking and would not slow your computer down. On Windows, if your spyware program (I'll use Lavasoft's Ad-Aware as an example here) picks up "objects", such as installed programs or registry keys, then it can be disruptive to your system. Sometimes you can pick up these "installed programs" if you click on a lot of ActiveX objects on a website or even by clicking on certain popup ads.

The pop-ads that state "Is your PC infected?" are probably some of the worst.

Michael Galloway

[Merry]

Thanks Mike! Good advice!

[Phy]

If you know somebody who provides hosting services, you can put up a free WordPress blog very quickly. Once up, making posts and updating the look and feel of the blog is very snappy. I've got a WordPress blog up at http://phywriter.com.