General Chat

Some of you may remember I had lost my Internet connection and was using my daughter's PC and email address. Since doing that she has been inundated with all sorts of strange mail.Loads of emails with attachments, returned mail she has not sent herself and other weird messages. She is now going to have to change her email address and I am not going to use it on this site. I see other people have had similar problems and it all seems too much of a coincidence! So apologies to anyone who tries to contact me and thankyou for all the good wishes received to date. Regards, Beryl Wilson

Beryl sorry i've missed you again hope you and all yours are well Shelli

So Sorry Beryl. But I have to say I have had so many emails. stating that I have sent this attachment and it contains virus.. to a certain person, it wasn't me....I don't know her name But I don't get any like that on my aol email address.. does seem strange doesn't it.. Good luck. Pat

Goodbye Beryl. I'm not getting any odd mail or viruses at home (so far - touch wood), but I've only got Windows 95. At work, I'm being inundated with attachments containing viruses and returned mail - and I'm certainly not on a genealogy mailing list there!

Good to know you are still around. I am still plodding along with Dad's history and often think of you, especially when looking at the lovely book you sent me. Elisabeth

Beryl I think that you will find that it is unconnected with genealogy sites or whatever, it's just that there are a heck of a lot of spam, viruses, adware, spyware and other nasties around at the moment. Follow Judy's advice about deleting cookies and temporary files etc.

Hi Beryl - sorry you are having probs, hope you can sort it out. Just to let you know my son is getting married in Aug and has a new job and he's fine.Thanks for your emails all those months ago. Take care and so hope you can get back on here:o) Love Jude x

Sorry Brian have to disagree, because for the last few months I have been inundated with viruses, spam, tracking, you name it, and all I have been doing, until this week, is geneaology. I am so fed up with it, this morning I had 112 emails, 4 of which contained viruses and not one msg was for me. The thing that concerns me most is that I recommened FU to a friend about 2 months ago, and since then she had had so much spam she has had to change her email address, until then she had had no probs, now I feel awful recommending the site. I have now reinstalled Mailwasher and anything with an attachment gets bombed back, so apoligises to anyone that has got their email returned. As yesterday I got a virus attachment from a graham.frith1atntlworld(.)com, I do not know this person but think this is a genuine email address. I am not naming & shaming, please don't get me wrong, but I am getting so many viruses now trying to hit my machine it is really concerning me about these genealogy sites. I do apologise if I have offended anyone that is not my intention, just want to rid the problem.

The problem with the latest sort of viruses is that not only does it harvest names from your address books to send the virus TO, but it also harvests names from the address book to send FROM. Therefore, you could get email that says it is FROM someone and it isn't.

If you are still reading this Beryl, what anit-virus and firewall are you using. They are essential, but add on a programme called Ad-aware- this will zap little bugs etc that sneak in on the back of a pop-up advert. AV & firewall have now become absolutely essential, and need to be updated almost daily [I use Norton, which updates automatically] Badger Bill

Hi there I use Norton AV with Norton Firewall 2004 and must say no probs. I am also with BT Yahoo Broadband so automatic filtering of spam, just one or two maybe slip the net which I just report as spam. BT have said do not open anything with a paperclip unless you are absolutely certain it is genuine. I have noticed in last couple of weeks Norton has been doing daily or more often auto updates. So must be a lot of naughties out there. Sandra

Beryl, sorry to see you go.......all the best in what you will do in the future.... on the topic of forwarded emails, I will NOT forward chain type letters with half a page of previous addresses....if i think it warrants attention then i will strip the extra addies off, and send it as new.....to one address at a time.....Bob

If you're receiving viruses it's not from websites. They are coming to you because someone who has your name in their Outlook address book has opened a virus. Blame your friends and not GC or other genealogy websites. Crista

Hi there I'm still clinging on! First of all can I just say I do not blame GC for the emails my daughter's has been getting - just that they started after I put her address on this site! She has anti-virus protection etc. but she is still paranoid and I sort of feel responsible. Anyway enough of all that..... Georgina - you certainly did thank me at the time...a well brought up girl like you! Shelli - Hi to you.. hope your little family is thriving. All my grandchildren are! Twins are now 18m. and had their first haircut today. Tearless it was too. Elizabeth M. ...so glad your dad's history is progressing. I miss our little chats. Take care. Judith....what lovely news about your son. Brought a tear to my eye. Wish them both every blessing from me. Have you bought your hat? Bill in Oz. Lovely to hear from you. Hope you are well. I miss those chats we all had when this site was young and simple ...like me once! Gosh I hope I haven't forgotten anyone, please forgive me if I have. Love to you all and happy hunting. Beryl.

Sorry but I have to agree and disagree with some of this, I set up an email account specifically for GC, so far I have not received any emails on this address from any contacts off here, nor does any of my family or friends have this address, so the only people who has this address is GC themselves, and 2 days after telling GC this new address I started receiving Spam, and I get at least 12 a day, not alot compared to other people I know, but when I know the only people to have this address is GC I start to get a little concerned, Tammie

Tammie, Most spammers actually use software to generate and guess addresses. Make sure your e-mail address is difficult to guess. Make it a combination of numbers and letters and don't use your actual name. I think I found your H otmail address using Google from the various boards you have been using. The fact I found it means spammers also will. Crista

Thanks Di. Just wondered if anyone had seen anything of her recently. Elisabeth xx

Like a lot of you I get approx. 20 e-mails a day coming in on my old provider's address. Viruses are intercepted by Norton anti-virus fortunately. Anything with a paper clip is suspect! unless I know it is from a friend. Sylvia