If someone tells you they're working on a website they want you to check out, what's the worst that can happen if you go to the site?

Just use the “incognito” settings on your browser, nothing will be stored.

I don’t have any idea what that means. That is not an option in my preferences.

What OS are you running?

I don’t really know what’s the very worst. But I would worry about getting locked into a bad site and not being able to escape, having malware stored on my computer, and having cookies left on my hard drive that could let someone send spam through my computer. Someone else can say if those are realistic fears or not.

@Jeruba Perfectly possible, it’s called a botnet, and basically uses your computer as a zombie to do their bidding.

What’s the worst that could happen?

Well it could be a hacker’s way of getting control of your machine. He could then install spyware (to watch what you do on the PC and online), and likely a keylogger as well (to create a log of what you type at all times, including user names and passwords)

You could then lose all your data to corruption, all your applications get shut down and your computer becomes part of a bot-net spamming and hacking at the whims of the controller and implicating you (your IP address) with cybercrime.

But go ahead and click :)

That’s why I was asking @gambitking. No need for sarcasm.

If it’s a friend asking you to check out their site, there’s nothing wrong with going there.

If it’s a business acquaintance but not someone you know very well, it’s still probably safe, but you’ll probably get some tracking cookies (which are relatively harmless, you really can’t go anywhere on the web without picking up a few here and there).

If it’s from someone on FB who you never heard of, or in a spam email, the site will put a virus on your computer when you go there.