grandms is right about that, "Malwarebytes has recently uncovered evidence that a company called IOBit based in China is stealing and incorporating our proprietary database and intellectual property into their software. We know this will sound hard to believe, because it was hard for us to believe at first too. But after an indepth investigation, we became convinced it was true. Here is how we know." See link it's a bit old... Here is a link that might be useful: IOBit info

Facebook isn't just about "friending" people you know face-to-face. It's about networking with people who have the same interests you have. If it wasn't for Facebook, I wouldn't talk to my cousins, who ALL live in The Netherlands. None of us like letter writing. Their emails get lost in all the spam I get. I have a lot of co-workers on FB and we have silly conversations on FB that we can't have at work. We don't all work the same shifts, so it's nice to talk on FB when it's convenient for us. I have friends who live in the US. We are a group of women (I mentioned our private group here a few days ago), and a few of us have met face-to-face. We used to use YahooGroups, but Facebook is so much easier to use. I belong to several colouring groups, photography groups, Calgary groups, etc., to get information directly from others. I learn more through FB about my hobbies than I do through Google, although quite often when I ask a question, I'll get sent to google... lol Facebook is addictive. It's fun. It's my way to keep up with my family because we are all so busy with our families, jobs and life in general. Do I really care what someone ate for breakfast? Nope. And they're probably not interested in what I ate either. But we post pictures and sometimes someone will say, "hey! You have a recipe for that? It looks delicious!". There is so much more than posting the food you eat or how the weather is.

@ aputernut Was that a stream-of-consciousness moment ? There's like about a 100 words there, with no punctuation, no sentence capitalization, nothing . . . How are we supposed to parse something like that ? lol Btw, the way that link was made, it only goes to ehow.com . I did take a look though . . . as you probably know, ehow.com is by no means a tech site. They have people employed to dream up things to write "how-to" articles about, a lot of it being almost copy & paste. They may be correct on some points, but it's hardly a definitive or authoritative site for tech info.

Many, many moons ago I allowed this method. I had a new desk top and it wasn't responding the way it should. I allowed the private builder to have access and he repaired the problem. Yes. It is safe if you know the reliability/honesty of the person you're allowing access to your system. It's often done by system builders [MS or HP] when nothing else will work. I've also allowed my ISP to repair damage they caused via this method when I first accessed the internet years ago. Do I recommend it? Sure. As long as you feel comfortable with the person you're giving the access to. It alleviates a lot of hassle/problems of moving a system. If you have a personal recommendation...that's even better. You might have to give the person your password[s] to enter your system...and after the repair is completed...I've always changed passwords...whether I had to give them out or not. It's just a private precaution but one I strongly recommend it.