I tend to agree with RedShoe on this one. A computer is a tool, a tool I personally use to bring income into my home. Surfing the net and installing all the latest and greatest cool little tools will lead you to trouble in the end. It is a well-known and documented fact that many of the programs that you are installing from websites contain entries to your registry and tcp/ip connections that allow companies to monitor your usage. This allows them to use this information to better market products online, and if they fail they can sell this information to the millions of companies looking to get a stranglehold on how to market on the television of the new milleninum.
My suggestion is to keep your box clean. If you have not been doing this since the beginning of time, you may not know how to build your own machines. While I find it is preferable to build my own machine, you can still control what is loaded on your system. If you must have a computer to surf with, do what Elsibeth and I do. We have five systems on the net at this time (not including servers that are co-located at our ISP), three we use for business and two that are toss aways that we use to surf with.
Regards,
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Midnight
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Excellence is not an act, but a habit - Aristotle