[mrsD]

I have a quick question....these new thingeys...are they safe?
My husband is having a widget attack!

I only have 3 so far on this unit...and I have to admit they are fun.
I have a clock which chimes every 15 minutes to remind me of my time spent LOL which we run almost transparent. And 2 others on my wallpaper start up..
Werewolf (which shows the phases of the moon)..a thing handy for my
profession LOL and a new one from Purina that lets you put your own pet (or other picture) in it and shows the weather customized to you. I figured out how to hide the Purina logo by running it off the screen It is cute too.

But my husband has put 6 on the new laptop...one that monitors the battery, and some others. I guess these are all the rage? As long as one has enough
resources? We got them from Yahoo.

But because I hate to download things, are they really safe? We ran virus scan and that seems okay, so far. But I wonder if they have some back door that we don't know about? etc? I just don't trust "free" things! sigh.

[Jomar]

most likely they would have adware or spyware instead of a virus.
So if you run a program that cleans those out too you should be fine.
I like spybot - free too

I think if you download from the lesser known sites there would be more of a problem. I think yahoo should check those before offering them.
I know Google has some too- but some will say that they are from another source- as a warning.

all those things do use up memory etc- but as long as it doesn't slow things down you must be OK.

and some ad/spy/ant virus will miss what another will catch - so I run a freebie or trial one every so often to double check.

[Lara]

Wow, I'd not heard of widgets yet, I don't think. Reminds me of that silly little sheep icon download that went around the net years ago to the delight of some and disdain of others (it drove me nuts basically). Anyone remember that?

When I read the title "Widgets: good or evil?" I did a double take. At first I thought you said widgies. lol Not sure if you all know what a widgie was. Back in the middle of last century there were apparently groups called bodgies (the boys) and widgies (the girls). They were the same as your rockers I've read. They have since been described as one of the first real "gangs" in gang culture in Australia. Thing is they were pretty harmless and basically hung around in milk bars and listened to Elvis.

[mrsD]

That is funny, Lara.

Here is how to get some:
http://widgets.yahoo.com/

The main page changes daily.