Keeping You Safe: Be Careful Whenever Your Search

By | March 31, 2021
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Keeping You Safe: Be Careful Whenever Your Search

Be Careful Whenever You Search

You should always use diligence and common sense whenever you search – regardless of the search engine you use. But there are two things you should never search for and those two things are tech support and drivers.

Many people have gotten in serious trouble by searching for these. The reason? Criminals and scammers know that people will search for things like HP Printer Support, Canon Printer Support, Dell Support, Display drivers, printer drivers, and so on.

Search terms like those are full of dangerous pitfalls. Why? Because the miscreants know you will be searching for those sorts of things and they’ll make ad buys on search engines so their scummy ads will show up on your search results. Once you click on one, you could find yourself in a trap or worse, end up believing that you’re on a legitimate site when you’re not.

If you need help with your printer, type in the site’s web address, for instance, https://www.hp.com/ or https://www.canon.com. If you need help, click on support while on the company’s official website.

If you need support for Windows, never search for Windows support or Microsoft support. Go to www.microsoft.com and click on support – or get help right from your PC.

If you need drivers don’t search for anything using the word drivers. If you have an NVidia display adapter that you need drivers for, go to NVidia’s website. If you need help with a Dell computer, go to Dell’s website.

And if you search for anything having to do with a driver or product support, remember this – only the name before the dot.com or dot.net or dot.org or dot.biz, or dot.tv, etc. in a URL (website address) is the actual domain.

For instance, the following web address is not for Dell support: dell.support.geeksrus.com.

It is not a Dell site at all – the domain is geekrus. So, it’s not a Dell site at all, it’s a geeksrus site.

Likewise, mircosoft.support.wegotcha.com is not a Microsoft site – it’s a wegotcha site, and if you click on a link like that, believe me, they gotcha!

Let’s take a test.

1.) Which of the following 3 URLs belongs to Microsoft?

A. microsoft.support.com

B. support.microsoft.com

C. .microsoft.windows-support.com

Answer? Only “B” is a Microsoft Site.

2.) Which of the following belong to HP?

A. hp.com

B. support.hp.com

C .hp-drivers.softonic.com

D. hp-printer.drivers.com

If you said “A” and “B” you’re right. Both A and B are HP sites. C and D are not. If you learn how to read a URL, you’re on the way to safer browsing – and safer searching.

Always pay attention to the words/names right before the dot com, dot net, dot. org, etc. in a URL (website address). If you learn how to read URLs (Web site addresses) you’ll know when to click and when to run away. 

One thought on “Keeping You Safe: Be Careful Whenever Your Search

  1. Annabelle Lee

    Thank you for this reminder…. I know you always are on the look out for our safety. Appreciate these tips in these spyware & malware times trying to trick us folks.

    Reply

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