Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Free Movie Downloads Can Carry Bad Viruses

By Charmaine Chan

There are many entertainment sites offering free movie downloads for anything a person wants to see. From those wholesome kid-appropriate flicks to the racier films, it's true that many of them are out there - and free - if someone has hours to spend searching the internet. But film buff beware! There are few "free lunches" - especially these days. Sometimes what you think is a the greatest deal one could ask for, ends up with you paying the price in computer problems and memberships fees you didn't want. So in the interest of keeping your home movie adventures safe and satisfying, keep the following in mind before you jump to download a film:

Make sure what they're offering is really at no-cost to you: Know the word "free" is used in many contexts in order to lure customers into buying things like movie memberships. A fact that's often concealed until someone has already spent hours searching online before finding a promising site, only to be faced with a mind-numbing membership form that's really a sign-up commitment in disguise. He will get a FREE trial membership - but those few days will cost him three months in advance. At this point, the mentally exhausted person hits "delete" in frustration and gives up, or has to start over.

In order to save hours of navigation through misleading advertisements, and wasting even more time on their endless forms - you might find the real thing faster by using key words like "completely free movies" in your online searches.

Expect the unexpected to trip you up - Sometimes the most frustrating part isn't finding a website that makes good on its "free" promises, but in locating an actual live download link that will give you the movie you've selected, once you're there. Broken links, offers for paid membership upgrades, and page unavailability are just some of the snafus you may come across when trying to access your free film.

Know the basics about your operating system - When you do locate a live link to your movie download, you may then be asked to pick the one that corresponds with the operating system your computer is using. It's wise to know at least the name of your OS program, so you don't accidentally choose a download with data your computer can't read that will cause you to miss your movie - and may even crash your system.

Use a flash drive to download from any internet site - As you know, you run a risk of picking up a computer virus every time you go online. And if you don't have a program that checks and cleans your system continually, you may be at high risk for attack, or worse.

Whenever possible, use a flash drive for everything you save to computer from the internet - and scan it before you open it, of course. If you don't have a flash drive available, then at save internet downloads to a file folder on your computer, and be careful that it's scanned for errors or threats before you attempt to view the contents.

Remembering things like this when surfing for free movie downloads, will help you to avoid paying big costs in unauthorized charges to a bank card or fixing computer crashes later. - 40731

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