Many times you'll open your email inbox and see an email from a potentially legitimate source...but it's not. Let me give you an example.
It's a pretty enticing title, wouldn't you agree? But if you click the link (and it's okay"), this is actually a link to a YouTube song I made called You've Gotta Have Friends. No worries, it's safe and has some nice lyrics about friends.
The point in this post is to teach you how to figure what the link really is so you don't get hacked. I'm pretty good at avoiding these scams but even I got hacked real bad a couple of years ago, and it cost me a LOT of money to hire someone to get the hacker off my computer.
HERE'S HOW TO CHECK THE LINK : On some browsers you can hover over the link without clicking and it will show the the web address. If that doesn't work, you can also hover over the link and right click you mouse/mousepad. That will show the link, or you can right click and select copy link and paste it on something like a word document, a blank email, etc...just don't click the link.
The key point here is to not click on a link until you see what website the link is actually going to. Many links in blog posts, news articles, etc. do go legitimate sites, the title is just easier to read than the actual web address.
"Titled" links have a purpose and are useful...especially on well known legitimate websites.
Example - Below are links to the same article. The first one has a title for the link, and the 2nd one is the actual link to the story.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/at-least-65-species-of-animal-laugh-study-finds/
In other words don't be paranoid about every link you see, but be careful on unknown sites, emails from unknown sources, social media messages, etc.
Stay safe out there in the internet world.
