There are so many urban legends about technology that are floating around, with most of them we seem to take them as the truth without even thinking about it. We have collected five myths about technology for you to be aware of.
You Don’t Have Better Signal with 5 Bars
Have you ever had your phone tell you it can’t send a text and you have been confused because you have what appears to be a full phone signal in the corner of your screen? The bars do not actually represent your signal strength, they show how close you are to the nearest cellular tower. If you’re in a really busy, built up area this could mean you’re competing with thousands of others for phone signal. You could be in the middle of London standing next to a cellular tower and have the same signal if you were miles away from a tower in the countryside.
Macs Don’t Get Viruses
Do you remember that advert with Mitchell and Webb where the PC was sick and the Mac was fine because it couldn’t get a virus? It wasn’t that it couldn’t get a virus it was that no one was targeting Macs at the time. A Mac can’t generally get a virus designed for a PC, but with Apple’s market share in computers growing more hackers are going to be designing viruses for Macs. Anti-virus won’t protect you 100% but it is definitely a worthwhile investment whether you have a Mac or a PC.
Private Browsing is Without a Trace
If you switch private browsing on in the hope that you won’t leave a footprint behind you may be sadly mistaken. While the facility allows for the information regarding which sites you have visited and the forms you have filled in to not be saved you will still leave a history. Any files that you have downloaded will remain on your computer after the browsing session ends and websites and ad trackers will still record your visit.
Emptying the Trash Deletes Files Forever
If you have hoped that emptying the trash or recycling bin on your computer has got rid of any unwanted files forever then you would be wrong. When you empty the bin you are only removing the links to the complete files and reallocating space on your hard drive. The files will still be there and any hacker will be able to find enough to rebuild your files if they wished.
The QWERTY Keyboard is the Most Efficient Way of Typing
Has anyone ever told you that the QWERTY keyboard is the most efficient way of typing and that’s why the keys are laid out in the way that they are? This isn’t true. The keys were apparently arranged in the way that they were so that it would avoid jams in a typewriter, by the time the more efficient DVORAK keyboard was invented we were all too used to QWERTY for it to take precedent.
