stuart piazza .blog

Sometimes you find yourself in a cyber-cafe, in class, or someplace where you are on your laptop and people can possibly look over your should to see what you are doing. Everyone has their usual routine of sites that they visit every day, but there are some that should just be passed over whilst being at one of these locations. Here is a list of the top 10 in no particular order:

1) Torrent/Warez Related Site – In almost every circumstance, you should wait until you are at home and in private before browsing today’s most popular torrents or new music to illegally download. Most of these sites are banned from usual popular contextual advertising networks, such as Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher Network, and thus in order to for these sites to profit, they must resort to advertising networks condoning porn and adult related banners and pop-ups. Sure, you may be browsing something innocent like the SpongeBob Seasons Box Set, but there may be a picture based advertisement for Fleshlight above it.

2) Porn Site - This one is obvious, but you would be surprised how many cases there are of people pulling up their favorite porn site in a public area. I’m sorry, but sharing your foot fetish with the whole world is just plain embarrassing.

3) Dating Site – Most may have trouble comprehending the negative effects on your self image that dating sites have. The content on most dating sites aren’t inappropriate, but checking your matches in a public library or Panera Bread makes people feel awkward. Someone who hasn’t tried a dating service sitting behind you may change seats if you are checking out “SexyMan09″ on Match, eHarmony, or any other service like this. There is also the extremely unlikely possibility that “SexyMan09″ is the one sitting behind you, and that would just be plain weird.

4) Online Banking – Would you going around telling random people that you have $1.00 left in your checking account? Unless you have an extremely high interest rate, then probably not. Most Online Banking sites have a small font when showing your current balance, but some don’t, and there’s always the chance that someone can snoop over and see how poor you really are. Either that, or someone with good eyes could find something could find something personal about you, like your name or account number. Keep Online banking for portable devices or in the privacy of your home.

5) WebMD - Browsing WebMD for entertainment in the first place, whether you are out in public or at home, is generally a bad idea. The site is created to easily access and discover many diseases whether you have them or not. Unless you are a hypochondriac or don’t want to become one, only use WebMD for personal research related to symptoms that you truly have. Now, looking up an STD for the hell of it in public will indeed make everyone around you think that you have that STD. People that don’t know you will become paranoid if you are looking up Tuberculosis and you just so happen to cough in their general direction.

6) Wikipedia: For the most part, Wikipedia is safe to browse in a public area. However, beware that each link within the articles link to another article of the respective topic. Be careful though, before you know it you will be at the male reproductive page and there are some images within that article that may make some people laugh at you.

7) StumbleUpon: One of the best ways to waste some time is to stumble around the internet with StumbleUpon. For those of you that aren’t aware with the service, users click on a “Stumble!” button on a special toolbar which takes them to random sites that have been submitted. However, many don’t realize that adult content is indeed mixed in with other sites, and unless you set your settings to block this adult content, you may StumbleUpon something inappropriate and make many people feel uncomfortable around you, especially if it has automatic audio like a lot of sites unfortunately do on StumbleUpon.

8 ) Craigslist – Craigslist is barely moderated, and so almost anything goes. You may find yourself clicking on a Mint Condition Original Nintendo Console and a male prostitute service may pop up…with pictures. Be careful.

9) Yahoo Answers – Unless you are searching for the answer of the Universe, or something that almost everyone cares about, be careful in public while searching through answers. Each question has the largest font on the page and it can easily be seen from 10-15 feet back. Yahoo Answers has almost every sort of question, and if you are looking at one entitled, “Where do babies come from?” then some people around you may wonder.

10) Facebook – If you walk into a libary, cyber-cafe, or school-campus, you may see at least a few people on their Facebook page. This is more dangerous than you think, because not only could someone easily get your first and last name, they could see an extremely embarrassing picture of you. It is almost instinctive to click on a link saying “Mr. Smith tagged you in a photo” – especially if last night was one that you didn’t remember. Pulling up a picture that you are unaware of in existence and wouldn’t want anyone around you, let alone anyone on the internet seeing, it may be a bit uncomfortable for you and everyone close by. Stick to Facebook Mobile or browse it very cautiously when in public.

There were a few runner-ups, such as masked links provided from TinyUrl, but if you generally avoid visiting these sites in public areas things should turn out okay. That, or you can sit in a corner of the coffee shop; just make sure there isn’t a large window behind you.

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