I got curious — how did people even catch viruses on their computers? Was it something a friend sent? Or maybe they downloaded a cracked game or some shady program? Share your stories — would be interesting to read.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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One popular way was that Internet Explorer 6 included something called ActiveX, which basically allowed any website to run code on your computer as though it was a locally-installed program. You could just click on some URL and next thing you know it's writing files to your hard drive. This is one of the main reasons why the Internet Explorer 6 / Windows XP era was particularly virus-filled. A website could open your freaking CD tray.
From the ActiveX wikipedia page:
Promising not to. And they did it anyway. The bastards.
when i was a kid, internet explorer on our family pc had 5 toolbars because someone just clicked next next next on all the installers.
Ah, memories.