Leaving browsers open

One thing you can do.. If the load time on the browser (The software you use to read the web is "The browser" the web page is .. Data it processes)

You can set a home page to BLANK

And just go to your home page instead of closing,, About:Blank will load no cookies, Will load not programs, Will use no bandwidth, It just sits there.

I also log off my Windows account when I'm not using my system. Doing so automatically dismounts my Truecrypt partition, so no one has access to my browser files, emails, documents, and Dropbox.

Leaving the page open when walking away or even leaving the computer for awhile - even for several hours or all day is no problem. But when you leave your computer and will not be using it for a length of time, turn off the computer and unplug it. Not because you are saving electricity which you are, but because if you leave the computer plugged in - even connected to a supposedly good surge protector - if there is a power surge you will lose the computer and anything connected to it. After this happened to us more than once, we learned a harsh lesson to just unplug the computer when we are not working at it, and save having to replace it. It is worth the several minutes of waiting after plugging back in and re-booting the computer to get it started again. And it is simple to route your plugs to a surge protector and then the surge protector single plug into one outlet accessible on the desk. Unplug that one plug from the outlet and walk away leaving safe equipment.

I either use a VM and/or a sandbox program like sandboxie, with the sandbox being on another drive. This way, if a website misbehaves, it won't affect (or even worse, infect) my whole machine.

Some sites (rv.net), I leave open. Others (like some social networking sites), I close because they will cause the memory usage of the Web browser to balloon over time.

I turn off the wifi connection and leave the rest on. You may want to go to the Task Manager, ctl/alt/delete on most. Click processes, then you can click the cpu heading to put it in a numerical order, ascending or descending by clicking again will change the order. Click memory and it will do the same. Leave it on far a while and see what's running, using memory or cpu processing.
I am happier with mine not connected to the internet.

Browsers by default are read. If cookies are enabled and used by the site, the cookies are created on your computer and contain mostly your info, like when you put something in your shopping cart, on the CW online store. It is stored on your computer. Sometimes accessing a browser may put an ad tracker, which tracks your movements to provide demographics to cookie writer. Well I am rambling. Websites do place things on your computer, but only when you access the site or an item on it. Many sites don't know your there until you request something, by clicking on an item in the browser. After it sends you something it ignores you until you come back. Like Verizon there is also a prompter that may pop up after 0-120 seconds of you being idle.

Web browsers do not maintain connection for long. Most forums consider you logged off after 15 minutes of idle and banks or secure sites even sooner.

There is no danger in not logging/closing off of non secure browsers. Always log off of banking type sites.

There are all kinds of nasty stuff, more than pics, on xxx, warez, torent sites.

As someone said above, there is little problem if you have adequate AV, malware software.

By far the best solution when you finish using your computer is to turn it off. Off off, not sleep. Saves power, keeps your information private to you, does not let any trojan programs that may have snuck on your system call home.

Mountain Mama wrote:
Does it make it easier to be hacked?

I'm hacked. Off, I mean.

But that's my Natural Condition, according to my Husband...:B

no

Does it make it easier to be hacked?