Do you bother to check out Links?

There is still phone banking , from most providers.

Galaxy

I dont know about you but the person I am thinking of has to do a journey to the bank that involves driving, there will come a time probably when they are unable to drive, managing their own money independently will be more difficult.

I use telephone banking. It is very effective. Some things are automated and there is also a facility to get through to an advisor, in fact people who know what they are doing, so it works well for me.

I normally use my landline as I have a call plan such that I pay no extra for calls up to an hour and it has never taken anything like that time even for more complicated things.

The reason that I won't have internet banking is that, notwithstanding the secure link from my computer to the bank I cannot absolutely be sure that at any time there is not a virus or a trojan or whatever got into my computer sending a copy of every key I press to someone somewhere. So my concern is not about the bank system's digital security it is the bit between me pressing a keyboard key and the information entering the bank's secure line. I do not know if, in effect, whether a monitoring point, a tee junction, has been introduced.

Yes, I have thought of that.
stardreamer suggested it before, I think.

If I had a decent tablet and felt better, I'm sure I could manage internet banking (famous last words) but my eyes are still playing up.
Least said the better about them.

pincers

Elegran

I can't find that exchange of posts between StarDreamer and MissAdventure anywhere, Pincer Could you tell me where to look for it, please? Which thread? Approximately when?

Page 5 of the River Po cruise, Elegran.

No anti-virus software is 100% foolproof. My cousin is far more tech-savvy than I am and uses the same anti-virus software as I do but recently his phone was infected with a virus which resulted in all his contacts being sent a link to a pornographic website. I consider links carefully before clicking on them and I never click on them if the source isn't given. I think that's acting prudently and responsibly, not being ridiculously over-cautious.

Missadventure said on here, at 10.18 "That is a problem with my phone, not the links." and then at 10.20 "I'm quite able to manage my own old phone (which isn't the "latest iPhone" - shame on me!) So nobody needs worry."

I can't repeat often enough that getting a good anti-virus programme and keeping it up-to-date with the latest known viruses and scams is absolutely essential if you use the internet and email. It then searches for and blocks anything from its list. Installing one without setting the updates would mean that it could miss any new threat.

The anti-virus programmes can be set to update regularly. You can choose once a day, once or twice a week, a month, or whatever. You don't have to be techy to do it, you just tick your choice.

I confess to being quite confused about what is needed.
I have Avast Mobile Security on my phone, which claims to do lots of things but also offers me more options, at more cost.

I haven't read all these, but if I am unsure of a link I don't open it. But I will type it into the search bar.

FarNorth This web page tells you a lot without bamboozling you. www.readersdigest.co.uk/lifestyle/technology/everything-you-need-to-know-about-internet-security

Along with a lot of other useful info, they repeat what I was saying about sites that start with https being more secure (the s is for secure) than ones with just http, but they don't mention the little padlock or the shield beside the site name in the box on your browser, which are other ways of labelling a secure site. If you hover your pointer over the padlock or the shield, you see more about what that symbol means.

nadateturbe It could be the site itself that is dodgy, not the link that takes you there!

Thank you Elegran. I'm feeling reckless so I'll click on that link.

Oooh!
Very brave, I must say.

FarNorth If you are not back by midnight, we'll send out a search party.

At the top of the Gransnet page at the moment, for me, is an advertisement for Tesco.

Yes, I use the Tesco website.

However, this advert is not just Tesco as such, it advertises four products, two of which I have only bought once, about ten days ago, and two others which are cheaper (and in one case bigger), other manufacturer versions, of two items that I bought recently.

One of the products that I have bought only once is a pack of A4 plastic document wallets, each document wallet to go in a ring binder and to contain a sheet of A4 paper, as in constructing a portfolio. So not typical grocery shopping.

That seems a bit weird that that level of detail is being tracked and then pops up on an advert on a Gransnet page.

Ooh!

Oooh errr!
I sometimes think of something and it seems to pop up in an ad, somewhere.

I'll have to try not to think too hard.

I assume that Gransnet has joined Google's scheme for automatically putting onto the page of a site an add which is triggered by certain words that appear on that page. On the one hand Google has sites which have agreed to this, and on the other hand they have clients who have adverts that need placing. They charge the advertisers to place the ads, and pay the site owners to host them.

Gransnet doesn't charge posters for using the forums, but they need the revenue that advertisers bring. Joining this scheme of Google's gets them ads without having to source them and edit them into the pages themselves.

I don't know how Google reads MissA's thoughts to produce ads for whatever she was thinking of. Maybe they employ Uri Geller?

StarDreamer In your case, I think the ads must appear because your browser is also in that scheme. Did you buy the items online? You can opt out of Google using personalised ads - you will still get ads, but they won't be eerily relevant to your own use of the internet.

Elegran.
I wondered what he was up to these days.

Elegran

nadateturbe It could be the site itself that is dodgy, not the link that takes you there!

Yes, but you can check it better using the search bar.

No ads for me, Tesco or otherwise

I've got load of bent up cutlery...
Not really.

Elegran wrote Did you buy the items online?

Oh, yes.

I suppose it would still be possible if I had gone in the shop and used my Clubcard. Though I haven't been in the shop since about 2010.

If I had had someone from Age UK go and get the stuff for me and the advert appeared now that would be twilight zone stuff.

LINK > www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETnNtT4rKwg

Oh the twilight zone!
Funny enough, I really was thinking of that programme when a thread was posted about Sundays.
I was thinking that Saturdays were better, with 'Kung Foo' on, and later the twighlight zone.

Spelt it wrong.
Don't care.

This thread has been useful for me, as I’ve turned off the link for Google to show personalised adverts now. It was really easily done in settings on my iPad.
This might help if anybody else wants to do the same.
www.businessinsider.com/how-to-prevent-google-using-information-it-tracks-about-your-purchases-2019-5