I got curious — how did people even catch viruses on their computers? Was it something a friend sent? Or maybe they downloaded a cracked game or some shady program? Share your stories — would be interesting to read.
this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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One popular way was that Internet Explorer 6 included something called ActiveX, which basically allowed any website to run code on your computer as though it was a locally-installed program. You could just click on some URL and next thing you know it's writing files to your hard drive. This is one of the main reasons why the Internet Explorer 6 / Windows XP era was particularly virus-filled. A website could open your freaking CD tray.
From the ActiveX wikipedia page:
Promising not to. And they did it anyway. The bastards.
when i was a kid, internet explorer on our family pc had 5 toolbars because someone just clicked next next next on all the installers.