As part of re-installing the software on my PC, I needed to add Adobe's PDF viewer and used Google to find the link. I idly clicked on the result at the top of the list and downloaded from the page it returned. When it completed, my anti-virus software went berserk and informed me that the file contained malware. I went back to the page which had the Google search results and only then did I notice that the link I had used was in fact an ad. This meant that it took precedence over the link to Adobe's site, which I had assumed would be at the top. I like to think that had I actually executed the file I would have checked that the software had the correct certificate before installing it, but I did come closer than I would have wished to putting something undesirable on my machine. Up to the point that the anti-virus issued its alert, I had missed a number of warnings that the website from which I obtained the download might not be kosher, such as the version of the software I accessed being the year rather than a number for example.
Although this is not strictly a photography related post, I thought it worthwhile to let people know. I know neither whether the anti-virus issued a false alert nor what processes Google goes through to vet its customers who pay for ads, but it does appear that they might not always be legitimate. Caveat scrutator.*
* Searcher beware, a variation of caveat emptor. Amazingly, this does not return anything relevant when I Googled it and I might actually have invented a new term. You heard it here** first.
** I nearly wrote "you heard it
hear first".
