Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Free Movie Downloads Can Carry Bad Viruses

By Charmaine Chan

There are hundreds of internet advertisements promising free movie downloads of any film ever made - from A to Z - at just one click of a link. And there are times when a person can find something on the internet for their children, and something for themselves to watch later - and get them both for free. However, it's wise to be extra cautious these days - especially when wandering the internet in search of "free" goodies such as movie downloads. So keep the following in mind while attempting to find your favorite films for nothing, and maybe your internet home theater vacation won't become an online adventure from hell:

Make sure the movies are really free - Nothing is more annoying than going through pages of sites advertising film download giveaways, finally finding one and then wasting more time on a five page "free membership" form - only to find out it will cost you, just like anything else. "Free" in this case means you get a "free seven day trial" movie membership, but not until you pay for three months of membership in advance. To say this is highly irritating, is sugar-coating it.

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.

Be sure you know what type of operating system you're on before you click a download - When you finally get to the download section for your movie, you may be asked to select a specific one based on your computer's operating system. Make sure you pick the right one, or your computer won't be able to read the data code, and could even freeze up - leaving you back at square one.

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.

It's smart to make it a practice of saving anything from the internet to a portable flash drive - especially things like movies - and then scanning it for any errors before opening it up on your computer. If you don't have access to one of these drives, then save the file to a folder on your computer's hard drive, making sure to scan it before attempting 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. - 40728

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