20 February, 2010
Free Music can cost you a lot
We all love our music – but at what price? Your teenager has been downloading music and now you PC is full of viruses – I wish I had a dollar for …. And you have a virus scanner, so what happened? Well you can have good quality car tyres with the right pressure and you still get a puncture too! There are two types of music download sites – those that are free or just have an upfront joining fee and those that charge per song or per album.
It is the free ones that you have to watch (one of the best examples is Limewire) as they usually require you to share out part of your PC to the entire Internet – this is how they work as you are downloading songs from some other individual’s PC and in return other individuals can then retrieve or upload the same songs from your PC across the Internet. Unfortunately this gives hackers and spyware easy access to your PC and next thing you have a virus that your virus scanner didn’t pick up until it was too late.
Even having a good firewall won’t stop you getting viruses from these sites. Also keep in mind that most virus scanners are OK or good at prevention but once you have a virus most are useless at cure and further professional help will normally be needed. But the story gets worse. Downloading music from these free sites also illegal – yes this is music pirating and is classed as criminal activity.
With society getting more big brotherish each day we are fast approaching the time when ordinary home users will cop hefty fines for downloading and sharing music over the Internet and this has already began to happen in the USA. Also with the havoc wreaked from viruses it can be a lot cheaper and certainly less frustrating to simply buy the music from sites like iTunes which is both legal and free from viruses or the traditional way on a CD from the record store down the road!
The same applies to free movies downloaded from the Internet which often bring in the problems of viruses, legality and even extra download fees on your internet connection. Kerr Solutions is at 128 Musgrave Street & is contactable on 49 222 400.
