Do you think that it was safer to use Internet 10 years ago or is it safer now?

[bartino11]

Do you see any difference in terms of privacy?

 

[Old Molases]

I think it was safer back then. Today, you are being spied upon, phished, and always at the verge of being hacked. Also, in the older times there were less violation of copyright infringements. Hackers and Agencies were evolving and people had less to worry about when surfing the net.

 

[Underdog]

The risk in the early days was just from the "bad guys". Today it is from the supposedly "good guys" like governments and salesmen.

 

[Macho]

Is satellite internet safe? Let Us Prey, comes from those who shop
at Wackenhut & Fingerhut. Radio Shack when a bungalow and out house
has those allowed to prey.
Telephone line internet best put on a fax line. The communications industry
is nastier than they make show business realize. The FCC would say you can
drop your call letters and join in to a 3 way conversation when your mother told you not to talk to stangers.

 

[Olivia Simmons]

Maybe, ten years back was much safer. But I think, in terms of safety, nothing much has changed. What has changed is the rate of scams and hanking. And it is still rising.

 

[captaincranky]

Well, if they're tracking me, I hope they enjoy my rants at Techspot, and plenty of porn.

More to the point, was anybody really safe with IE 6?

For whatever anybody thinks of Google's tracking, they're pretty good at babysitting as well. They do, "have your six", as they say in military dramas.

 

[Avro Arrow]

It's definitely safer now because...

1.) No Flash
2.) No Java

At the same time, it is less safe to some extent because more personal information gets stored online today than ten years ago.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Maybe, ten years back was much safer. But I think, in terms of safety, nothing much has changed. What has changed is the rate of scams and hanking. And it is still rising.

Ten years ago:
1) Flash
2) Java
3) Internet Exploder (for those who were too lazy to get something good like Firefox)

Defintely not safer back then.

 

[captaincranky]

Maybe, ten years back was much safer. But I think, in terms of safety, nothing much has changed. What has changed is the rate of scams and hanking. And it is still rising.

What has changed dramatically for the worse, is the intelligence of computer and phone users. I don't store anything of significance on my web machine, and I don't even own a smart phone. People these days live and store their lives on their cell phones. I still get paper statements for my bills.

While Google may have its nose up our butts, they also weed out most of the BS, spam, and scam emails before they ever reach our inboxes.

In addition to that, I don't do any storage on a machine hooked to the web. Anything of importance is stored on air gapped machines. None of my machines are connected to a LAN either. Just the ones the need for the web to the router.

So, if I got hit with ransomware, I'd just pull the drive out of this machine and throw it in the thrash. Right after I told the hackers to pound sand.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Ten years ago:
1) Flash
2) Java
3) Internet Exploder (for those who were too lazy to get something good like Firefox)

Defintely not safer back then.

Dont forget the widespread use of adblock today. Back in 2010 adblockers were in their infancy and ads were fantastic at infecting your PC with all sorts of crap. Modern OSes are also sandboxed really well, XP was so easy to infect and destroy from a single bad download. For PCs the modern internet is far safer.

For the end user, not so much, in that today so much gets tied to your real world ID and so many sites and corporations and entities fight to get you to use your real ID for internet things, and so many more payment systems and accounts are tied to the internet today, its far more dangerous for your personal information.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

What has changed dramatically for the worse, is the intelligence of computer and phone users. I don't store anything of significance on my web machine, and I don't even own a smart phone. People these days live and store their lives on their cell phones. I still get paper statements for my bills.

While Google may have its nose up our butts, they also weed out most of the BS, spam, and scam emails before they ever reach our inboxes.

In addition to that, I don't do any storage on a machine hooked to the web. Anything of importance is stored on air gapped machines. None of my machines are connected to a LAN either. Just the ones the need for the web to the router.

So, if I got hit with ransomware, I'd just pull the drive out of this machine and throw it in the thrash. Right after I told the hackers to pound sand.

Most people I work with are, quite frankly, too stupid to use PCs. They dont know how to use USB drives, how to copy and paste, or how to read links before clicking on them, despite literal decades of using computers every day. It drives me nuts, the whole reason internet platforms have to be dumbed down is for these people that can barely master a calculator insisting everything in their lave have facebook on it.

 

[Macho]

Going by Homer Simpson cartoons. Old bars still open from the 1920s' when they had gangsters and prohibition still get visited by exactly those persons as if they came forward through time, including unknown law enforcement divisions that no longer exist but still somehow are out there shaking down customers.

When using an XP Computer again, you will have exactly that problem, since back then everything had to be CERTIFIED . That is why IE does not work anymore since it sees thousands of certification errors and other problems with bandits everywhere, you are not allowed online.

The FCC that no longer exists today, but did back then are out to get you to prove that every computer GEEK is a pervert.