Is Downloading Ringtones Safe?
A great deal of individuals worry about whether downloading a ringtone from the Internet in order to personalize their phone is safe or not. Regrettably, there is no definitive reply to this question. ‘Is downloading ringtones safe’ is a part of a broader question, namely: is downloading anything from the Net safe or not?
Broadly speaking, the more up market the site you are downloading anything from, the less chance there is that you run the risk of downloading a virus. There is never zero danger, but there certainly is a great deal less. This means that you have to look at the web site that you would like to download from and calculate the probabilities.
The manner to start doing this, for ringtone download web sites and all others as well, is to look at the quality of the web site. Does it look cheap? Does it look as if it was thrown together by an amateur or by someone who does not have quality on his or her mind. If the site does not ‘feel right’ or if the costs are much cheaper than elsewhere, be wary.
Why would anyone like to trick you into downloading something from them – say a ringtone? Well, real ringtone aggregators (web sites that sell ringtones) pay royalties, so spurious sites will probably be breaking laws.
You might not mind about that, but what if there is a problem? Do you want to be involved? Or if your ringtone does not work, who are you going to complain to?
Another reason for individuals to sell you ringtones cheaply or give them away is so that they can put a tracking cookie on your computer hard disk. This tracking cookie will phone home every time you push keys on your keyboard (a key press tracker) or it could scan your hard disk for financial information.
For an additional check, you could insert the name of the web site into a search engine in a style like: ‘concerns with xxxx’ or ‘ringtone scam sites xxxx’, where ‘xxxx’ is the name of the ringtone website under your scrutiny.
Cost is another cause for concern. There are websites that offer free ringtones, but most websites sell them. The average price is about $3 for one or unlimited downloads for six months for $15 or $25 for a year. If the costs are much less then allow alarm bells to ring.
The ultimate way of stopping these things from happening is to have the best antivirus (AV) software installed on your computer and mobile phone or download the ringtones to your computer and then transfer them to your handset by Bluetooth.
The solution to not having to worry about downloading anything from the Internet is AV software. The very best costs just $60 for two years or so, so do not be mean, be protected.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, but is now concerned with searching for free ringtones for mobile phones. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Family Plans For Cell Phones.