It looked totally legit, so I made the grave mistake of clicking the link which, of course you’re probably ahead of me and have figured out, was a virus.
It cost me $350 to have that virus removed.
Sunday, I was browsing via cell phone and received a pop-up from the provider that my cell phone battery was badly damaged, click on link to repair.
Once again, it looked totally legit, but I’m a quick study, not about the make the same mistake twice so, looking legit or not, I hit the return button to get back to the previous page.
Nothing happened.
I was being held captive by the pop-up.
After attempting different maneuvers to free myself, the pop-up message changed to … “Your phone has 3 viruses, click this link to repair” and then the threat, in big bold letters, “IF YOU IGNORE THIS MESSAGE, LEAVE THIS PAGE, YOU WILL BE BLOCKED!”
Unable to break free, I shut down and, when I rechecked, I was indeed blocked -- with supposedly the only way to get unblocked being to accept a download being offered.
Who ARE these people?
Why do they do it since nothing seems to be gained?
So annoying, but at least they didn’t fool me twice. The phone was otherwise okay, I just couldn’t access the internet.
Expecting record-breaking triple-digit heat yesterday, I was so hoping not to have to leave the unit for any reason but, of course, I had to head to the provider’s store to get unblocked.
It wasn’t a big deal … something to do with certain apps, which apps were deleted and problem solved.
Under the category of learning something new every day, whether you want to or not, did you know that when you browse the internet via cell phone and eventually exit the net, the pages visited do not leave you?
There is a little space top right of the url, with teeny tiny numbers I never noticed before. My number was 12, which was signaling I had 12 pages open in the background.
Cell phone guy instructed that, by clicking on the number, I could access the Tab Manager to manually delete pages which I thought were gone and, to my mind should have been gone, when I left the page and/or exited the internet.
He also said, “Your phone can’t get a virus”.
Good to know.
No cost for the service, plus there were two poke stops right outside the provider’s store.
On tap for today … the plan is once again to stay indoors, out of the heat.
We’ll see how that manifests.
I too am staying indoors, out of the heat. And bad air.
ReplyDeleteI too have a phone that can't get a virus. And, yes, I know to clear my pages on my phone every so often. I do it a couple of times a day. Makes everything a little faster.
You're more tech savvy than I. Had no idea.
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