Open our monthly email to view the latest computing device tips and news to keep you informed and safe.
Computer/ Internet Tips & News
April 2017
This Month's Tips:
Why you should ditch your Internet provider's email & how we can help
New tech support scams to be aware of
How to backup photos from a smartphone
Never worry about updates again with our Computer Maintenance Plan
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Why you should ditch your Internet provider's email & how we can help
Over the years we’ve written various articles about AT&T/Yahoo email being plagued by account security issues, bothersome ads added to their webmail interface, spam messages sent to user’s contacts and more. The revelation that over 500 million Yahoo accounts have been compromised in recent years leads us to once again advise people to stop using AT&T/Yahoo Mail, and switch to using a more secure and reliable email provider such as Gmail.
If your email address ends in @att.net, @sbcglobal.net, @nvbell.net, or @prodigy.net, the advice above includes you – since Yahoo provides the email and web content services for AT&T Internet customers. We’ve had several customers this year permanently lose access to their AT&T/Yahoo email due to the lack of security of the service. AT&T recently announced that they are switching to a new homepage, yet keeping Yahoo as their email provider.
An important security option for online accounts is 2-step verification – neither AT&T/Yahoo or Charter/Spectrum email accounts offer the option. Therefore we recommend that you ditch your internet provider’s email service and switch to Google’s Gmail or Microsoft’s Outlook Mail.
In the past month we've learned of 2 new tech support scams to trick people into paying for bogus and unnecessary tech support services:
If the scammer is unable to personally reach you, they will now leave a message saying that you must return the call "...because your Windows license is expired."
If you've fallen prey to a tech support scam in the past, they will call back months later to "...offer a refund." The scammer will then say they need remote access to your computer to "help you fill-out the refund form", but really once they gain access to your computer they put a password on it to lock you out and demand money to unlock it.
Many of our clients have been asking for a way to keep their computer secure and up-to-date, and not have to worry about the seemingly constant barrage of updates.
With websites getting hacked on a daily basis, and the increasing chance of your personal information being compromised, it’s more important than ever to keep your computer up-to-date and maintained.
Now you can have Computer Techs maintain, update and check the security on your computer on a convenient schedule. Service takes about an hour and can be performed via a Remote Support session or on-site. Services include:
