Friday, April 18, 2008

Be Careful With iPhone Music Downloads

By Charlie Reese

Be Careful With iPhone Music Downloads

Although part of the fun of having an iPhone is being able to play your favorite music from MP3 files, you do have to keep yourself safe withy iPhone music downloads. Cyber criminals target music downloads in order to break into your electronics and get a hold of your personal data. They also can send you really annoying adware - although you don't get your identity stolen, you do have to waste time and battery power dealing with constant advertisements.

What Not To Do

You definitely should never click on a link for iPhone music downloads from an unsolicited email, unsolicited fax or from a pop-up ad. This is one of the favorite ways cyber criminals load spyware onto your iPhone and then your computer. They set up what are called Trojan horses (after the one in the Greek myth). Like the magical wooden horse that actually houses Greek soldiers, a modern day Trojan horse is a data file like free iPhone music downloads that hide spyware.

You also never want to download iPhone music downloads from anyone sending them to you when you are on a peer to peer (P2P) network like Usenet. Although the instant communication is neat, there is a distinct lack of security to P2P networks. This is why cyber criminals love to hang out on P2P networks - they can't be detected. Even if your friend sends you free iPhone music downloads, delete the files immediately, and then delete your Delete files.

What You Should Do

Although it sounds like a drag, the only completely safe way of getting iPhone music downloads is to pay Apple iTunes for them. There are a few other legitimate low cost MP3 services such as Rhapsody and Napster. You need to download their software and sometimes a monthly fee in order to get access to thousands of iPhone music downloads from all kinds of music categories. These places often come with a free trial so you can see if your computer and iPhone get along with the service.

Or, you can just buy the CDs of your favorite artists and make MP3 files yourself. That's one of the safest ways to build up a music library. And if your iPhone crashes or breaks, then you don't have to loose your entire music library, too. Buying CDs also helps supports your favorite artists, who really don't see much money for their hard work. Not unless they have a deal with iTunes, that is.

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