Exactly. Although, malware that physically destroys your PC is very rare. The biggest problem is that your OS get's ruined and you start over with formatting an reinstalling. That is a nightmare if you get trouble to rescue your data, and the process of installing takes lots of time (not so much windows itself but all the programs you use in your daily work).
The vast majority of people consider "risky" websites to be those that are either adult entertainment or piracy download sites. Whilst there are many websites in these sectors that are "risky", the ones that actually intend to deliver their content for the purpose it's intended for are probably some of the safest sites out there. Due to them having been targets for many years of publicity campaigns against them, they have to ensure they have high quality security in place to keep the punters coming through the doors.
Risky websites that people always overlook are the ones right in our faces. They are the YouTube's, the Hotmail's, the Facebook's of the internet world. All of these expose you to some form of danger without you ever knowing it, or rather, without you thinking it. All provide routes to view flash media, the latest trend for virus/malware delivery. All provide endless links and adverts to click on, when quite often you don't know where that link will take you. These are the true "risky" sites and they are risky because people consider them entirely safe - in fact I bet there's not a single person here who doesn't use at least one of those 3 I listed, if not a whole array of other related websites too.
The authorities and copyright holders may want you to believe that piracy is a dirty crime, be that through direct download or on a site showing content that they don't own the copyright for, but the fact is these so-called "dirty, filthy" websites are no more likely to be riddled with "dirty, filthy" viruses than those sites you consider as clean and visit multiple times a day. Whether you're viewing streaming media content on Youtube or on soXratedyoureyeswillpopout.blah doesn't really matter, either can deliver viruses/malware to you and in both cases you don't know who has posted the content or what it may have embedded within it.
KD is absolutely right. In short, if you can afford to then get yourselves some decent security solutions that score 95% or higher on test reviews for threat detection. Free ones generally only score up to about 80-85% at most, with the majority of them coming in at 60-70% for threat detection.
I'd stick with your Netgear for now, see how you go. I'd say the results you've seen from what you've tried so far clearly indicates it isn't a router problem.
Oddly enough, since changing the channel, when I have the beast switched on upstairs and the laptop on downstairs the beast tells me I have an IPconflict.
Further investigation warranted methinks.
With regards to Networking, when powerline stuff first came out I purchased a set (packard Bell I recall) it didn't do what it said on the tin so I set it aside.
THis am on UK BBC was the Sunday morning "Click" (technology prog) and they were going on about media streaming via a NAS Hard Drive via hard wire cabling OR if you cant do that this stuff
Same prinicipal, obviously, although the prog was saying that for media streaming this technology was far far better than a wireles signal, and I wondered if anyone has any feedback on this type of system please?
Oddly enough, since changing the channel, when I have the beast switched on upstairs and the laptop on downstairs the beast tells me I have an IPconflict.
Further investigation warranted methinks.
As a first step, providing your machines are set to use DHCP and your router is configured to give out DHCP addresses (which is most likely), might be worth doing the following on each machine:
1) Make sure you're not downloading anything or copying files over the network etc.
2) Open a Command Prompt window.
3) Type "ipconfig /release"
4) When that finishes, type "ipconfig /renew"
5) Repeat on the other machine.
6) Then on both machines, in the Command Prompt window, type "ipconfig /all"
7) For the Wireless LAN adapter entry on each machine, check that the "IPv4 Address" lines are different with what it shows on your laptop compared to your desktop.
Might help, if not, definitely needs more investigation.
Linear Mode
