![]() ![]() He also wrote the USA's most-saved article of 2021, according to Pocket.Ĭhris was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Beyond the web, his work has appeared in the print edition of The New York Times (September 9, 2019) and in PCWorld's print magazines, specifically in the August 2013 and July 2013 editions, where his story was on the cover. With over a decade of writing experience in the field of technology, Chris has written for a variety of publications including The New York Times, Reader's Digest, IDG's PCWorld, Digital Trends, and MakeUseOf. ![]() Chris has personally written over 2,000 articles that have been read more than one billion times-and that's just here at How-To Geek. Far, far fewer computers than that experience problems with updates.Ĭhris Hoffman is the former Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. Some people have estimated that 500 million computers each year become part of botnets. On the other hand, there are millions and millions of computers that are part of botnets, often because they refused to install security updates and ended up infected. Related: What to Do When Windows Won't BootĮxactly how many computers were affected by these problems? We don't have any good data that tells us this, but it's a minuscule percentage of people. In 2009, a McAfee antivirus update made some computers unbootable, but that only affected computers running that particular antivirus - one we wouldn't necessarily recommend. Aside from that, we've seen a few botched updates but no updates that led to blue screens like that. In some cases, driver updates have broken some drivers. This year, there was an update for Windows 7 that caused blue screens of death on some PCs. And, indeed, Microsoft's Windows Updates seem to have had more problems than usual lately. Some people are scared to install updates because of potential system problems, from blue screens and corrupted Windows installations to various other issues. If you disable automatic updates for Firefox, Flash, Adobe Reader, or other important software, you should go turn them back on right now. For software like your web browser and browser plug-ins, you also want to leave automatic updates enabled - thankfully, that's the default these days. You want Windows Update to install those updates for you automatically. Just selecting "manually install updates" and installing updates when you remember to do so isn't really good enough. Attackers know business and home users are often slow to update, and they can wreak some havoc in the time before people patch. Attackers now know the problem and can rush to start exploiting it as soon as possible before people update. After a patch is released, the security hole becomes public knowledge if it wasn't already. You often need to patch security problems as soon as possible to fix whatever the problem is. Patches Should Be Installed as Soon As Possible And, if you do, what's the point of installing critical security updates manually? Just have them install themselves. It's possible you leap into action every time you see the security notification, but many people don't. ![]()
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