Its also a big hassle for background tasks that require internet connections (dropbox, time sync, OS updates, etc).

@DavidGrinberg Dropbox is malware and botnet though.

But by limiting time exposed to the internbnet, doesn't he limit the opportunity for that keylogger to be put onto his PC?

@SargeBorsch Interesting comment. Do you have a reference where one could learn more?

@Mawg yes, as mentioned in other answers, it does limit the time of opportunity for an attacker but I believe the time of opportunity is not going to determine whether you obtain malware or not, what's going to determine it is user habits and their endpoint (device) security. If you have poor user habits as an internet user and poor endpoint security, you going to obtain a virus whether your connected to the internet 100% or only 25% of the time. Malware only needs 1 chance to be installed

@ncd275 My question was actually about the "Dropbox is malware and botnet" comment.

@Angew sorry lol I didn't notice the "@"

@Angew Dropbox native client on OS X used dirty tricks to snatch user's local admin password (by faking system password dialog), and actually saved that password. proof-link And without possibility to inspect their code, who knows, maybe they send these passwords back to the master in some cases, possibly after some time delay. Or pwn systems at a later time, because, hey, they have root access (until password is changed).

@SargeBorsch wow, thanks DropBox = deleted

@SargeBorsch Funny when windows is more secure in this respect. It's much harder to fake the windows dialog boxes that grey most of the screen and then pop up a box

"focus on the security of your device" could mean something as simple as setting up a good firewall. If OP is paranoid, something like the pfSense (which is vastly more configurable, and enormously more complex for the newcomer) may be a better choice than a standard run-of-the-mill home NAT router with minimal configurability. Combined with a host-local firewall, a well-configured perimeter firewall can make breaking into the network and hosts quite a bit harder, and absolutely cuts down on drive-by intrusions.

@Cruncher not hard enough when one has enough time or enough money. The latter is clearly no problem for Dropbox

@SargeBorsch Don't applications in windows ask your permission to go full screen the first time they do? Or at least something pops up with a notification that an application just went fullscreen with instructions on how to exit from it

@Cruncher last time when I used windows — maybe 3 years ago — don't remember seeing that

@MichaelKjörling Never mind the minimal config options, what about the non-automated, almost never provided, security patches....

@SargeBorsch it's a functionality of Windows 10: system dialogs asking to allow a program to use permissions gray the whole screen and remove all windows (so you see only darkened desktop(s)). I don't think Win8 or prior go that far though.

@SargeBorsch The fact that Dropbox spoofs an OS password dialog and performs certain tricks to bypass OS-level protections may well be a very good reason to avoid using it, but I fail to see how that makes it a "botnet."

@BaileyS I didn't want to completely bash a whole class of, after all, rather useful products (where some products are admittedly better than others; it's basically "you get what you pay for" all over again). And of course pfSense isn't the only alternative option out there, but it's one I happen to have looked into some myself.

@ZachLipton it hijacks root access on large amounts of computers, and it phones home, all while being closed source. isn't it the minimal functionality of botnet? And of course it may gain arbitrary new functionality without asking the user, because of automatic updates.

@MichaelKjörling I totally agree that x86/x86_64 Linux/BSD based firewalls are way better. You get all kinds of really cool features such as VLAN, and security patches ship super fast. A modest x86_64 box is really very affordable now.