Sourcing, checking and naming
Advice about software safety is only as good as the document behind it. This page shows which documents those are and how far they were checked. Revised 2026-10-26.
Three kinds of source
The research file lists 29 documents, and each has one job:
| Kind | Publishers | Relied on for |
|---|---|---|
| Public agencies (14) | CISA, the UK's NCSC, the Federal Trade Commission, NIST | What risks look like and what ordinary users should do about them |
| Platform documentation (12) | Microsoft, Apple, Google for Android, the Debian and Ubuntu projects | How each system's own safety features work and where to find them |
| Licence bodies (3) | The Open Source Initiative, the GNU Project | The definitions of licence terms, and nothing else |
Security firms' sales pages, download portals, blogs and forums are not sources for anything here.
The text check
A script fetched every one of the 29 documents on 2026-10-26, once each and without retries, and searched the returned text for 78 short patterns: the specific statements, figures and feature names the guides take from them. All 29 answered and all 78 patterns were found. Every guide shows that day as the date it was last reviewed against sources.
Not machine-checked
A pattern match proves a phrase is on the publisher's page, nothing more. The script did not judge whether a guide explains that phrase fairly, and it did not look at the guides' own linking sentences, their ordering of advice or their examples. Three practical steps no source sets out as such are the site's own: the habits for reading installer screens, the steps when a program reaches end of life, and removing an unwanted bundled program. Each is marked on its page as a suggestion from this site.
Naming without endorsing
No product is ever recommended. The only software named is what the system's own maker documents as part of the system, such as Windows Update, PowerShell's Get-FileHash, Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, Gatekeeper on macOS, Google Play Protect and APT, and it is named so you can find it on your device. Citing an agency or vendor document does not mean that body has seen or approved this site, which is independent of all of them, of app stores, of security companies and of software makers.
Examples and commands
A command appears only where an operating system maker or Linux distribution documents it for that task. Worked examples are labelled as invented, describe no real person, device, program or business, and use shortened placeholder checksums instead of real ones.
Drafting and review
The guide text came from an AI system working through the documents in the table. No human editor or security professional has reviewed them so far. The drawings are SVG code written with the same AI system, not generated photographs.
Money and links
Nobody pays for placement and nothing is sold. For now sources appear by name only, without hyperlinks, and nothing points to a download. Any links added later would go to the cited documents or pages as useful to a reader, and any paid link would carry a label.
When a source moves on
Operating systems and security advice change often, and the text check above ran a single time, on 2026-10-26. Nothing is set up to run it again, so Microsoft, Apple, Google or an agency may have revised a document since then and a guide here would not show it. Before you change a setting or install anything, the maker's or agency's current page is the one to follow, not this site. No contact route is open either, so an error could stay in a guide without anyone pointing it out. Should a guide here be amended, the amendment carries its date on that guide.