Opened a Phishing Scam email..?

[Verve]

I was leaning towards using Ubuntu via virtual box in the past for general web browsing in the past, whilst keeping normal windows for all the important stuff, but I did not find conclusive info on vulnerabilities to the actual pc (via shared internet connection i.e. NAT, Bridge..etc), thus deferring my plans.



Well I wouldn't know if any 'unknown service' would be running on Task manager, since I wouldn't be able to differentiate whats normal and whats foreign (virus/malware). I did check if my Chrome and anti-virus were upto date, did a couple of scans.. and even uninstalled chrome in the end insuring all data is wiped.. don't know what else I could do.

In all honesty, buy a mac or macbook. I'm using an i5 (mid-2010 from new) and it is running pretty much flawlessly for past 11 years (one hard drive change and one £2 resistor for gpu changed myself)! No viruses, no attacks of any kind so far Alhamdullilah.

 

[Dual Wielder]

In all honesty, buy a mac or macbook. I'm using an i5 (mid-2010 from new) and it is running pretty much flawlessly for past 11 years (one hard drive change and one £2 resistor for gpu changed myself)! No viruses, no attacks of any kind so far Alhamdullilah.

Much props on replacing a resistor, did You diagnose the fault yourself?

As for going for a Mac I was tempted to in the past, especially the Mac mini series.. but later opted to build a mini home theatre PC instead (size of the wii), and had no regrets greater performance* at half the cost, also used it for light gaming.. it ended up being my main PC until recently. In regards to the Virus/malware I don't usually have an issues I believe I may have caught it once or twice in 7-10 years; I'm much more cautious now, and I don't see myself ever using an Apple product, I've grown accustomed to Windows.

 

[Verve]

Much props on replacing a resistor, did You diagnose the fault yourself?

As for going for a Mac I was tempted to in the past, especially the Mac mini series.. but later opted to build a mini home theatre PC instead (size of the wii), and had no regrets greater performance* at half the cost, also used it for light gaming.. it ended up being my main PC until recently. In regards to the Virus/malware I don't usually have an issues I believe I may have caught it once or twice in 7-10 years; I'm much more cautious now, and I don't see myself ever using an Apple product, I've grown accustomed to Windows.

It was already a diagnosed problem - trigger by a small resistor that kept failing (hence sudden shutdowns) due to higher demand from a higher version of OS. Finding the right resistor from mouser website took a little search as the repair shop that diagnosed the issue didn't give out the part number.

Yeah building a custom windows PC is the way forward, a decent gaming PC for around £600 plus screen. My advice re macs is for those who tend to replace windows laptops every 2-3 years as most of them start failing or really slowing down by 3rd year.