Were they game sites or were they “game” sites. There are a lot of game sites out here that can’t be trusted, they’re warez site or crack sites or otherwise engaged in bad stuff sites. The first rule of the internet, regardless of computer type or OS: if you know the place you’re getting this from is engaged in illegal activity don’t blindly trust it. I freely admit to not always being the most law abiding computer user in the world, and when I hang out in the dark corners step 1 is make sure my AV is up to date and step 2 is scan what I just downloaded. Trust nothing, keep your laser handy.
Yup, know about the evil animated cursors, the blight of every IT department in the world. The malware Trojan specifically designed to get women, I’ve never heard of a guy getting hit by these emoticons seem to be a female thing. But it’s OK guys get nailed by fake codec packs, for viewing porn of course, there’s a nerd comedy routine in that I’m sure.
Yes we almost all do run as admin, heck even I do most of the time, I know the rules but I’m just as lazy as the next guy. I’m real strong on following the REST of the rules (especially the having good AV and firewall) to make up for it, I trade CPU cycles for personal effort.