Keep taking the antivirals
How does Andrew Brown know he is virus-free (Read me first, February 8)? It’s similar to how STDs are on an exponential rise because of (a) increasingly liberal attitudes and (b) no-one thinks that they’re habouring any STDs.
Anton H
· My machine sits behind three firewalls. I also use free anti-spyware and anti-adware programs, online email accounts in place of Outlook, and Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. So far my machine has yet to contract anything - although writing this email is probably the kiss of death to that.
Keith Baker
Leicester
· Andrew Brown says: “It is common sense not to use IE or Outlook Express except when you absolutely have to.” Can he suggest alternatives?
Michael Stanhope
TG replies: Thunderbird for email, Firefox for browsing
· I don’t buy antivirus software either, but in my case it’s because I use Linux.
Phil Thane
Llangollen
Better than humans
I am intrigued to know how the demonstration is going to work, if, as Peter Judge writes, the computers “literally stop working if you look at them”. (Computers take a quantum leap, February 8). In this respect they differ crucially from better-understood “classical” humans who stop working if you don’t look at them.
Philip Diamond
London
NHS needs a booster
Why does it take so long (NHS data project that everybody loves, February 8)? Online traders like Amazon or eBay can be up and running in a few months.
Antony Watts
PlusNet gets back to Dave
Dave Eyre (Letters and blogs, February 8) is correct - we don’t accept email for customer support. We provide a secure messaging system at our website which helps you to track responses and it is more accountable. We provide an 0845 number for when you can’t access our website. Average wait time at the moment is just over four minutes. Dave may have called last year when waiting times were longer, but I’m confident he will notice a great improvement next time he needs to contact us.
Phil Sheard
PlusNet, Sheffield
Face up to Facebook
MySpace (Victor Keegan, February 8) has a real competitor on the social networking battleground: Facebook.
Mark Muldoon
Manchester
The bigger picture
Agencies have not been targeting only small businesses (A picture paints a thousand invoices, February 1). Bigger companies generally put their hands up and settle as quickly as they can. As for professional web developers who do not know the value of good photography, and through ignorance or bullishness steal images, what can one say?
Pete Jenkins
National Union of Journalists, Nottingham
That explains it all
Your article, What does “unlimited” mean?’ (February 1) has solved a puzzle for me. I live in Swansea, use NTL and pay for a 4MB connection. Last week I noticed my download speed drop by around half. It was working perfectly one day then the next it was complete rubbish. The day before I had downloaded several Linux distribution ISO files. I phoned NTL to report a fault on their side, and after three-quarters of an hour, at 10p per minute, the technician tried telling me that my PC was the problem. He insisted I dismantle my setup and restore DHCP under Windows, and then he told me my Ethernet card was broken. Not once did he mention this shaping/capping business, and I ended up paying £5 in support calls.
Simon Blake
Swansea
· Send your letters, comments, questions and rants to tech@theguardian.com, and please include your address and telephone number.
This article was amended on 3 September 2020 to remove some personal information.
