How Do Home Computer Users Browse the Web?

With the ubiquity of web tracking, information on how people navigate the internet is abundantly collected yet, due to its proprietary nature, rarely distributed. As a result, our understanding of user browsing primarily derives from small-scale studies conducted more than a decade ago. To provide an broader updated perspective, we analyze data from 257 participants who consented to have their home computer and browsing behavior monitored through the Security Behavior Observatory. Compared to previous work, we find a substantial increase in tabbed browsing and demonstrate the need to include tab information for accurate web measurements. Our results confirm that user browsing is highly centralized, with 50% of internet use spent on 1% of visited websites. However, we also find that users spend a disproportionate amount of time on low-visited websites, areas with a greater likelihood of containing risky content. We then identify the primary gateways to these sites and discuss implications for future research.

Digital Home Strategy

The goal of this chapter is to discuss and analyze strategies related to private computer users and digital homes. The chapter begins with an analysis of ICT users based on (1) age and (2) skill level in using digital technologies. Based on these two factors, four categories of users are identified: (1) young uninformed, (2) old uninformed, (3) old informed, and (4) young informed. The chapter analyzes each category in detail and discusses digital strategies for each group. Next, the chapter examines strategies that can be used to digitize houses, such as the use of temperature monitoring and light controls. The chapter concludes with an analysis of smart home trends.

Prevalence of Computer Vision Syndrome Among Iranian Medical University Employees and Graduate Students in their Occupational Environment

Background and Objectives: The prolonged use of digital screens can cause a set of visual and ocular symptoms known as Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS), which is a common health issue among computer users. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of CVS among university employees and graduate students in their occupational environment in Iran. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the Rehabilitation School of Iran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran. The study population (n=154) included all university employees and graduate students who spend at least one hour of computer work per day in their workplace. The participants completed a validated self-administered questionnaire. A descriptive analysis was performed and the prevalence of CVS was calculated. The correlations between variables were assessed using the Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients and non-parametrical tests were used to evaluate the association between CVS and predictor variables, as well as differences between subgroups. Results: The Mean±SD age of the sample was 37.7±11.0 years, 64.3% were women, 57.8% were employee, 56.5% have higher education and the Mean±SD of computer usage time was 5.08±2.2. The total prevalence of CVS was 48.7% and the most frequent symptoms were eye redness (62.3%) and burning (56.5%). A significant positive correlation was found between the number of hours working with a computer and the total score of CVS (Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.248, P=0.02). Moreover, the total score of CVS significantly differed between participants who use six or more hours the computer and those who spend less than six hours (Mann-Whitney U test: P=0.007). Conclusion: This is the first investigation using a validated questionnaire to estimate the prevalence of CVS among computer users in the occupational environment, in Iran. The results show a relatively high prevalence of CVS these populations. The most affected are those who use the computer for a longer duration.

Design an Improved System to Control the Computer Temperature

Temperature is one of the most significant problems that computer users face, especially the users who deal with works that required high-performance processing such as gamers and designers. The traditional PC heat detection methods depend on the information of the CPU and the user should go through a long procedure to check the heat or by installing some third-party programs and in the end, he has to take the action manually. Although some researchers have been talked about the temperature controllers, no system used both software and hardware to control the PC temperature, also there is no consensus on the quick and efficient methods to protect the PC from the overheating problem. The proposed system improved the current solutions by providing better performance in terms of quick responses for safety protection. This paper proposes a novel system for controlling the PC's temperature to increase the safety of computer users.

A Study on Hazards of Computer Viruses

Computer use is becoming part of our lives every other day however there have been considerable threats of computer viruses in the recent past. Viruses have had adverse effects on data and programs ranging from formatting hard disks, damaging information infrastructure, suddenly restarting machines, deleting or modifying data and in some cases mild effects such as slowing down machines or producing irritating sounds. Viruses have been a major cause for worry especially with the advances in data processing, storage and movement of information technologically. Many computer users and organizations especially the computer intensive organizations have had to invest heavily in dealing with viruses particularly those organizations running the windows platform. These computer viruses have been defined by their characteristics of entry and multiplication without the user’s notice as well as diverting the normal functioning of the computer. This paper seeks to define a virus and explain its related terms such as malicious software, worms, and Trojan horses. It explains vulnerabilities of operating systems in relation to viruses, it makes an observation on strengths of Linux versus Windows, outline the present state of affairs, apart from using anti-virus software, there are other procedures which can help protect against viruses which are also mentioned, the future of computer viruses and the conclusion that the Internet is serving its purpose of interconnecting computer and hence promoting distribution of viruses then makes some recommendations on viruses.

Harnessing the Challenges and Solutions to Improve Security Warnings: A Review

The security warning is a representation of communication that is used to warn and to inform a person whether security menaces have been discovered in order to prevent any consequences of damage from taking place. The purpose of a security warning is to provide a legitimate alert (to notify and to warn) to the users so that a secure manner of action is safely conducted. It is worth noting that the majority of computer users prefer to dismiss security warnings due to lack of attention, the use of technical words, and the deficiency of information provided. This paper determines to achieve two outcomes: firstly, a thorough review of problems, challenges, and approaches to improving security warnings. Our work complements the previous classifications in the identification of problems and challenges in security warnings by value-adding a new classification, namely immersion in the primary task. Then, we add other related works within the known classifications accordingly. In addition, our work also presents the classifications of approaches to improving security warnings. Secondly, we propose two timelines by addressing the problems, challenges, and approaches to improving security warnings. It is expected that the outcomes of this research will be useful to researchers within the niche area for analysing trends and providing the groundwork in security warning studies, respectively.