Safety tips without pop-ups/unders

February 1, 2011 5:43 AM

Please recommend good websites and blogs about computer/internet/social media security issues, someplace where I can find out about the latest scams, phishing attempts, malware, etc. I don't really like Snopes, due to the pop-under ads (what is up with that, anyway?). Thank you.
posted by SillyShepherd to computers & internet (4 answers total)

I have no idea about alternate sites, but Firefox has various addons that are rather ridiculously effective at blocking popups/unders. (Fond of RequestPolicy, which requires a lot of permission-handling on my part but infinitely preferable to the alternative.) I get next to zero pops now.
posted by Heretical at 8:23 AM on February 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can somebody point me to a similar question that I might have overlooked?

@heretical, Thank you, but I wasn't really looking for browser add-ons. I'd rather steer clear of such sites that would behave that way.
posted by SillyShepherd at 12:33 PM on February 1, 2011

Just spotted your question on the stumped list and remembered I had an answer.

Here's some sites I've stumbled across over the years. This particular list (plus snopes) was part of a discussion I had in 2005 after debunking a particular email forward to the owner of a distribution list. I've mainly stuck with snopes myself, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the sites, and I'm not certain that they all deal with the technical issues as much, though I know some of them do.

urbanlegends.about.com
hoaxbusters.org
hoax-slayer.com
truthorfiction.com


One other strategy, which is how I've first discovered some of these sites--once you know about the scam/chain email, searching for the keywords will often yield sites debunking it. Sometimes it's a one-off thing, but often they do it regularly, and you've found yourself another source.
posted by yuwtze at 10:04 AM on February 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thank you, Yuwtze.

Since asking, I've also discovered this site, which has a lot of good links, too.
posted by SillyShepherd at 6:32 PM on March 14, 2011