Myths about technology are nearly as ubiquitous as technology itself, and often stem from the rapid progress of computer technology. Let’s take a little time to debunk some of the more common and problematic ones.
This common misconception likely arises from the use of capitalization to help make reading and remembering an email address easier. For example, it’s easier to read TechHelp@AllproTechnology.com than techhelp@allprotechnology.com, but those capital letters don’t actually do anything. Messages will go to the same recipient, regardless of capitalization.
While it’s relatively small market share and “walled garden” app ecosystem do shield Apple from some attacks, they are by no means immune. Malware can and does target Apple’s devices, and there are security flaws in Apple products, too. This is true of every modern operating system because they contain tens of millions of lines of code, leaving ample opportunity for errors and unexpected behavior.
Incognito mode and other browser privacy modes generally do a good job of removing your activity from your computer, but it remains visible in the web traffic passing through your internet provider as well as the websites or services you access.
While increasing the core count of a processor can speed up certain multitasking workloads, a variety of factors impact performance, including clock speed, RAM capacity, RAM speed, hard drive performance, the type of core, the type of workload, and cooling configuration, among others. Instead of focusing on core counts, the emphasis should be on what type of work will be done with the computer and ensuring that the hardware is suited for that purpose.
There was a time when this was true in some instances, but modern charging technology protects batteries from being over charged. However, devices should be partially discharged and charged regularly to maintain battery health. Letting the battery completely discharge or keeping it at 100% charge all the time can reduce battery life and performance.
Most modern devices use lithium ion batteries, and completely discharging them can actually reduce battery life and performance. Keeping batteries charged to 100% all the time is not recommended either. Maintaining a 15-85% charge should help maintain battery life and performance.
Don’t do it! Storage technology has come a long way in the last decade or so, and nearly all modern PCs use solid state drives instead of the mechanical drives that benefited from defragmenting. These solid state drives (SSD) have no moving parts so the “location” of the data does not matter. In fact, defragmenting and SSD can actually reduce its lifespan while doing nothing to improve performance.
There is no target too small for cybercrime, particularly because many cyberattacks are automated. Or, perhaps you think there’s nothing you have to hide? What about social security numbers, credit card and banking information, and other private personal information? The consequences of such information becoming public can really destroy a person’s life. Take appropriate steps like using strong, unique passwords and two factor authentication to safeguard your data. Take any notification of a data breach involving your data seriously and follow the security guidance provided in the notification.
There was a time when this was recommended, but it tended to result in people either using simple passwords or using the same password for everything. It is pretty obvious why a simple password is bad (it can be easily guessed), but why is password reuse a problem? The issue is what’s called credential stuffing. Once the attacker has the username and password for one account, they are used to attempt to access other online accounts. If you are using the same password everywhere, the attacker suddenly has access to all of your accounts. Use strong, unique passwords for each account and enable 2FA instead of changing passwords regularly.