Library has not had any issues that I'm aware of. I'm sure we have a ton of protection, as we have probably 100 + computers in use daily by the public (across all branches) and people will click anything.
All public computers go down and reboot between users.
Our staff email goes through something called SPAM Titan- some messages are sent there for us to open or delete- always junk.
And yet- there's one email I keep getting endlessly no matter how many times I try to block sender. Coat, Restore, Protect! some floor coating product

@SallyG check with your admin to see if they can filter base on subject. This is usually more effective that sender as spammers will change the address with every message sent. And it's never a valid address.

Chances are that when the computer reboots between users, it's also clearing all temporary files and possibly reloading key operating system files.

Rick, I have set up a lot of my own filters on email to weed out persistent, annoying senders, and McAfee sends a lot of other ones straight to Junk. The subject line of the scam mail I almost fell for (shudder) looked legitimate, though, so it didn't attract attention.

I recently set up Paypal accounts and started selling things on eBay and I swear that being active on one or both of those sites is causing tons more spam and scam email to come my way

Mariposa, I'm not computer savvy enough to know the answers to your question about older systems.
Regarding secure online purchases: I know it's best to frequent sites with https: addresses rather than just http: (the "s" is for "secure" I believe), but I think I've ordered from http sites without problems. I worry about one of my daughters, who orders lots of random stuff from China, but so far she hasn't had any problems knock-on-wood.

Sorry to hear you're now dealing with eBay/Paypal. Good luck with that!

Secure sites, HTTPS vs HTTP, are becoming more common as the cost comes down and the push is stronger to get more of the Internet to encrypt. The cost of the security certificate used to be close to $1,000/year or more. However, just because a site uses HTTPS, it doesn't mean they're always legit. One thing to look for on a site are 'security seals'. These are usually tied in to whomever is actually doing the credit card processing and are 'renewed' every time the page displays. If the merchant, for some reason, doesn't renew their security evaluation, the image won't display. For example, here is what appears on our site:


An advantage of using a service such as Authorize.Net, Paypal (which I will NEVER do), etc. is that the processing is fully automated and the merchant never sees the customer data. Unfortunately, I don't think eBay will let you use anyone other that Paypal.

Now, as to why I will never use Paypal... We used to use both eBay and Paypal. We got turned off on eBay/Paypal by the large number of scammers. The final straw was when a buyer claimed they never received their order. The package was sent with a 'Return SIgnature' request, meaning that they had to sign for the package. They did. We had the signed receipt. We had a letter from the USPS verifying the authenticity. eBay/Paypal told us that no amount of documentation would invalidate the buyers claim. As a result, the yanked several hundred dollars out of our account and we were left with nothing, And this was before they started changing all of their policies to completely favor the buyer with no recourse for the seller. Yes, that was years ago. Yes, they may have changed their ways. No, we will never use them again.

Of course, there were also the impatient 'buyers' that would send an E-Mail at 3:00am asking the color and dimensions of a vase that was clearly stated in the online description. And then they would send another note at 3:15am wondering why we hadn't answered yet. It might have been tolerable if we we getting better prices, but we weren't. We were actually getting less.

I'll get off of my soapbox now.

I don't blame you for steering clear of eBay, Rick; those buyers would have #$%&ed me off too!
So far I haven't had any scam buyers I'm not going to be selling much more on eBay, though.

I ran into the "expired security certificate" problem when I tried to order from a merchant a while back. I got a warning pop-up (from McAfee I think) saying the company's security certificate had expired and asking me whether I really wanted to order from them. I backed out of the order even though I really did want the merchandise.
Fortunately, the company renewed its cert so I snapped up some of my favorite shorts on sale last night

Anyone else getting an ad for security fixes for aransom company at the bottom of this thread page? I really hate being followed/stalked!

I'm not....I don't get any ads; I use an ad blocker. I would tell you how to install it except my daughter did it for me.

I have some ads here but nothing weird