Dear CNET members,

Happy Friday! For those of you who contributed to last week's topic on "Buying advice for my final computer: laptop, all-in-one desktop, or what?", well I have a special treat, Member Brian C. not only e-mailed me to thank you all for your help (See email here). He has also posted a bunch of replies in the discussion from last week as a follow up to your answers. It's always wonderful to hear back from our fellow members in response to your help. Thank you Brian, we all appreciate the feedback!

Now let get started on this week topic of when is it safe to click on "install updates" pop-ups? John, I don't blame you one bit for wondering about this, as today menacing threats to our computers are always getting more and more sophisticated often disguising their malware downloads using deceiving look alike pop-ups of legitimate companies. And you bet sometimes it is often very difficult to tell which ones are truly legit or not. As many of our members pointed out in the answers to you, the safest thing you can do if you are paranoid about this is to not trust any of those popup updates at all. And have your software set to not automatically do update, but updating them manually yourself by checking the software manufacture Websites for updates and downloading it from them. While this is a lot more work on your end, it definitely cuts down the chances of being deceived with malware.

However, if the manual work doesn't seem like that is your cup of tea, just be very, very careful and if you have any suspicions--just don't click it at all! One particular bit of advice I must point out that was repeatedly mentioned by our members is to never click on any pop-ups you do not trust or are uncertain about. As member davefrombc pointed out: Don't click the "X" to try to close the popup. There are malware tricks that use that to install their garbage as well as clicking anywhere else on the popup. So with that said, check out all the advice from our members, I'm sure by the time your done reading them, you'll have a good sense of what to be aware of to play it safe when you are presented with those "install updates" pop-ups. Stay safe everyone and thanks to all who contributed!

Cheers!
- Lee

Got suggestions? Send me an e-mail: messageboards@cnet.com

Featured member solutions
for last week's question:

 "When is it safe??? Excellent Question "
-- Submitted by: charleswsheets

 "Good Question. "
-- Submitted by: webserf

 "WHEN IS SAFE TO ACCEPT UPDATE POP-UPS NOTIFICATIONS "
-- Submitted by: GEO2003

 "Be careful "
-- Submitted by: davefrombc

 "NEVER"
-- Submitted by: ruggb

 Read all member contributions

 Thanks to all who contributed!