Are these things anything to worry about?

[cousinlucky]

I finally finished straightening out my home folder last night. I turned on my computer this morning to check for email. This afternoon when I turned my computer on I found the following new files in my home folder:

.DCOPserver_linux_0
.dvipsrc
.emacs
.esd_auth
.fonts.cache.1
.ICEauthority
.recently-used
.Xauthority
.xsession-errors

What are they?
Are these files spyware?
Can I just delete them?

[hazel]

This afternoon when I turned my computer on I found the following new files in my home folder:

.DCOPserver_linux_0
.dvipsrc
.emacs
.esd_auth
.fonts.cache.1
.ICEauthority
.recently-used
.Xauthority
.xsession-errors

What are they?
Are these files spyware?
Can I just delete them?

No, they are not spyware. They're personal configuration files for various programs that you have been running. I don't recognise all of them but emacs is a text editor and esd is the environmental sound daemon. .ICEauthority and .Xauthority contain authorisation keys, .recently-used is your recent documents list and .xsession-errors contains any error messages that programs have given you. In short, they are mostly useful and quite small, so you might as well keep them. Besides, if you delete them, they will only keep reappearing. If you don't want to see them, just don't include hidden files in your folder view.

[Cabhan]

Right: any file that starts with a '.' is a hidden file. These are usually config files of some sort. For instance, .emacs is (not surprisingly) the configuration file for Emacs. A file that ends in 'rc' is a resource file, another term for a config file.

Hazel explains the gist of it well.

[oz]

cousinlucky, I think perhaps those past experiences with Windows have made you paranoid.

[smolloy]

cousinlucky, I think perhaps those past experiences with Windows have made you paranoid.

As stated above, these files are all quite normal and safe. I bet almost everybody on this forum has the same list of files and folders on their machine.

[cousinlucky]

Thank You Everyone!!

I must have done something as root that revealed this stuff. I am going to stay out of there.

You are correct Ozar my painfull windows experiences have put a permanate expectation of expecting the worse sooner or later.

Something downloaded itself from a cd I was listening to while I was writing a letter while using Easy Office in windows. What ever kind of program it is its in the windows registry and prevents me now from using system restore.

Not knowing what I am doing within a computer makes me nervous. It is about the only factor in my life right now, besides aging every day, that I have absolutely no control over.

[smolloy]

Something downloaded itself from a cd I was listening to while I was writing a letter while using Easy Office in windows. What ever kind of program it is its in the windows registry and prevents me now from using system restore.

Was this from a Sony/BMG music CD? Maybe it was the famous "Sony rootkit"?

[cousinlucky]

I was given the cd buy my cousin who sang and played music at at theJoyce Theater production it was derived from. The cd is copywriten and probably has been infused with malware.

The cd had a blank case so I do not have any idea who produced it.