Welcome to another edition of The Weekly Geek.

This week I want to keep it short, so let’s get straight to the material. Since many of you will be buying a new computer for Christmas, the first thing you will want to do is add some software program(s) that you did not get. Please only buy from e-mails you requested and know sources (like us, or www.newegg.com). Do not purchase from a random e-mail.

Among spammers there’s trends and fads, and I’m not getting so many offers to enlarge my bodily parts these days, but I am getting more and more offers for cheap software – especially Microsoft Office and Symantec products but cheap “security” software ads / scams proliferate my email and are part of “drive-by-downloads”.

Most offers are quite primitive but some look a bit more sincere – we’ve seen one that’s a decent copy of a familiar Amazon product page. Naturally it has nothing to do with Amazon. Continue reading →