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Usenet binaries question

July 05th, 2012 - 10:14 am ET by The Seabat | Report spam
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Howdy: Sorry if this is the wrong group, but I went to the helpdesk
group and downloaded the last 500 threads and found just one freakin'
post about usenet, the rest being bulls**t! So thought I'd try here.

I was perusing a couple of groups with programs to download and saw
that the majority of them were under 10MB. If you download the RAR
file it opens up to reveal an EXE file that most often trips my A-V.
What the heck are these things? Is this some kind of new usenet
downloading practice? What the hell are you supposed to do with these
little exe files? I clicked on one in an old used computer and it just
went to busy with nothing apparently happening. Can someone enlighten
me on this please? Or at least tell me where to go to get some
answers?


The Seabat
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#1 Wolf K
July 05th, 2012 - 10:25 am ET | Report spam
On 05/07/2012 10:14 AM, The Seabat wrote:
Howdy: Sorry if this is the wrong group, but I went to the helpdesk
group and downloaded the last 500 threads and found just one freakin'
post about usenet, the rest being bulls**t! So thought I'd try here.

I was perusing a couple of groups with programs to download and saw
that the majority of them were under 10MB. If you download the RAR
file it opens up to reveal an EXE file that most often trips my A-V.
What the heck are these things? Is this some kind of new usenet
downloading practice? What the hell are you supposed to do with these
little exe files? I clicked on one in an old used computer and it just
went to busy with nothing apparently happening. Can someone enlighten
me on this please? Or at least tell me where to go to get some
answers?



If the compressed file includes an *.exe that "trips my A-V", then
that's a clue that you should get rid of the whole file pronto. These
*.exe files may be designed to download and install the actual program,
but I wouldn't accept the risk signalled by the A-V program's warning.

I would avoid downloading compressed files from any Usenet group. Get
them from legit websites, if available. But be aware that bad stuff can
be hidden in many different kinds of files, so set your A-V to inspect
the files _before_ you open them. If your A-V can't do this, get one
that can.

Good luck.

Best,
Wolf K
kirkwood40.blogspot.ca

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