Online threats like viruses, worms, phishing and spam cause computer users plenty of stress. A survey of Canadian surfers finds a fair amount of swearing and shouting is the result.
August 17, 2005 – Computer viruses or worms are by far the most common type of threat experienced by Canadian Web users, according to a new survey released by Symantec and conducted by Pollara.
The threat of virus infections, slow performance or system crashes, and spam are the three main factors that stress out online Canadians. Interestingly, spam made the top three even though it is more annoyance than threat.
Even though Canadians are stressed about spam, they have actually been getting less of it than they did a couple of years ago. According to Ipsos-Reid, by the final quarter of 2004, Web users in Canada received 87 spam messages per week, or 49% of their total e-mails received, down from 134 in 2003, about 68% of all e-mails.
How do Canadians react to these problems? They ask for help or try to solve the problem themselves. But shouting and swearing is a common response�especially among men over 55.
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