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Tarq57

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Everything posted by Tarq57

  1. Tarq57

    TrackMeNot

    Hi. You are referring to this? Then no.
  2. Thanks for the reply. I''ve had luck finding drivers before for various applications and updates, but never been in the situation of trying to find a driver that will make something designed for XP work using '98. Are you suggesting that this is possible?
  3. My father in law has been given an HP printer scanner (oldish) designed for XP as a minimum OS requirement. (Can find out more details if required.) Asked if I could find and download a driver for him that will make his equally oldish lappy running 98SE work it OK. I was about to explain to him that it's not that simple and probably impossible, but I don't know that for sure...thought I'd ask here. Anyone have any ideas on whether it's even worthwhile attempting this?
  4. Second SpywareTerminator. Been using it for almost a year. Take the time to read the FAQ's before enabling the HIPS, though, unless you have a good idea about how to deal with popups. You could have gotten confused about what comes with SP2: it's a (one way) firewall, not WD.
  5. It over-writes a file seven times, in effect, erasing (or shredding) it. Such a file is not normally recoverable, if at all. In fact a file overwritten at all is difficult to recover, 3 would be considered pretty secure, 7 very, and there is an overwriting protocol called the Gnutman (named for the Author) which overwrites 35 times, for the truly paranoid. Just deleting a file merely gets rid of the header information; the remainder of the file is left behind and if not overwritten, can be easily recovered. Overwriting a file takes a bit longer than just deleting it. (I think NSA stands for No Such Agency..7 overwrites is the protocol they consider adequate to destroy a file.)
  6. Ha. Bit lost on me, over here in the Antipodes. This Michael Howard.
  7. There's an application called Dropmyrights, written by Michael Howard that allows you to run a browser with a limited user account inside your admin account. Several links available, here's one: PCWorld
  8. Depends as to what sort of use the computer is put to, whether it is networked, and how many other users there are. Any of those factors would suggest a slightly elevated risk, therefore more frequent scanning is indicated. (At my workplace, where there are more than a hundred computers networked, there is a scan going on pretty much constantly.) (which is a total pain. It's slow enough anyway.) As far as I can work out, the main reason for scanning is to catch something that may not have been caught by the on access protection, because the signature for it wasn't added at the time it slipped in. If your AV is strong on heuristics, maybe less frequent scanning is indicated. If any of the users are teenagers, or near-teenaged boys, more frequent scanning is indicated. I have none of those risk factors, use Avast! home, and used to scan weekly, or any time I had reason to be suspicious (strange behaviour, browser settings changed, redirects, etc.) Spyware and trojans are, I think, a more likely threat than viruses, I alternate the virus scan with an antimalware scan using Superantispyware, SpywareTerminator, AVG AS, and Asquared (not all at once.) Never found anything beyond an occasional FP or a cookie. Seen the odd thing blocked, though, when passing through a dodgy neighborhood. Now scan monthly or thereabouts.
  9. The only time I've lost firefox bookmarks was following a power failure with many tabs open, and other applications running, too. That took a bit of sorting! But Firefox generally has been totally reliable.
  10. I have the AVG one, seems alright. Also have Blacklight available, and Rootkit revealer. Some of the results do need a bit of knowledge to action correctly, not everything flagged is necessarily a rootkit. Help files definitely worth reading.
  11. Anthony A, I think that subsequent versions of MediaPlayer were built upon 6.4, which I think is part of the OS. I think you should install it. Anyone know for sure?
  12. I've read something similar about (possibly) the same attack vector...the salient identifying feature being the words "a family member has sent you a..." Basically, don't open postcards/greeting cards if the "family member" isn't identified by name. Is that part of the form your daughter's e-card took, slowday?
  13. Tarq57

    AdAware 2007

    It is weird to remove it, I agree. However I've just done this, following an attempt to update the defs, which was mildly confusing at best, and achieved an update of the updater, nothing else, whilst all the while the def's information (dated 9/June/07) claimed it was up to date. I don't know of any other security applications, not popular ones, anyway, that are happy to leave a user non-updated for 11 days (or at least report that as being the case) and since I can't post at the Lavasoft forums, Bye bye. Probably for good. If anyone working at Lavasoft should read this, please take note.
  14. Tarq57

    AdAware 2007

    I'd have no issues with updating Spybot. Mr Kola has demonstrated over a long period he has the users interest at heart. And decided for various reasons not to certify it for Vista, instead choosing the "works with Vista" option. http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html Re AdAware, tried to register for the forums. No confirmation email. Tried contacting them, message bounced back. Clearly they are not interested in providing support for the freeware version, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it.
  15. I think I'm probably going to be in the minority, here, but I very much like the Avast interface. Took quite a while to get used to it, initially the layout and options seem quite idiosyncratic, but the actual program is very configurable, perhaps more than most, and having learned a bit about how to do that configuration and access the options, I now find it falls easy to hand. Plus it looks different, and that's appealing. It talks. Indeed it does. And the voices/alerts can be changed for any .mp3 file you have. So I've "tweaked" my sound system. Because I didn't like the update voice, got something different. (small electronic bells, zip zorps and whizzbangs, and a voice that says "transfer of data is complete.") The program itself has given me no problems or glitches. Not one. In just over a year (which included a straightforward re-registration.) That's got to be unusual. It's also helped keep the 'pooter free of malware, the main test, I guess. Have had the odd FP, no more than any other program; less than some. The forum is active and helpful. So I have absolutely no reason nor incentive to change. I used AVG AV in the past, but it was long enough ago that a comparison (1) would be sketchy and vague, and (2) unfair. Have also used Avira and Norton. All three freeware ones are good. I'm sure you'll have at least pretty good protection no matter which of them you choose. transfer_data.wav transfer_data.wav
  16. I had to install this one (KB892130), which seems to want to be updated every few months. Had a good look at it to make sure they weren't trying to smuggle in the WGA Notify tool, that's the one that gets on my wick. But it was OK.
  17. Tarq57

    AdAware 2007

    I don't think anyone will really know until it's put to the test. http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showtopic=9458
  18. Tarq57

    AdAware 2007

    From a few items I've read, it seems a lot of these programs (Adaware, Asquared, AVG) do install a service that runs at start, and it appears to be largely as a result of Vista requirements. As mentioned above, easy enough to set it to manual. One has to remember to turn it off after any use, though. It's using just over 20Mb in task manager, without the program even open. I too was a bit nonplussed at the lack of expandable info in the scan results. Turns out the column dividers are invisible, mouse along them to find. Really needs the program to be maximized to see the entire content, though, especially with long strings like registry entries. A bit disappointing, when many other programs just expand the text, or scroll it along in response to a mouse click. I prefer the full expanded text, so much easier to read. I use the MVPS hosts file, it flagged 4 or 5 of the entries. (Checked that the addresses were still what they ortabe, then selected "ignore") Really, if it's going to be detecting entries with known dodgy names why didn't it detect almost all the hosts file entries? The program does run fast, start fast, and look real slick. But the main thing, for me, will be how well it detects and disinfects. Only time, and stories from those who know, will tell. Nothing it's done wrong so far is a deal breaker for me. 'Specially since the version I'm using is free. Thing is, I never seem to get malware, so I'm unlikely to be able to test it for real.
  19. Still doing it. Bug appears un-fixed to me.
  20. It's quite possibly unscrewable. Need a bit more info. What checkboxes have you ticked in CCleaner "windows" and "applications"? Did you try a scan as suggested above?
  21. Should be pretty straightforward. Website specific website preferences are retained by small files called cookies. They are created every time you visit most websites, log in to same, or change preferences in same. Open CCleaner. Click "options" then "cookies". There are two lists; one on the left to be deleted, one on the right to be saved (A whitelist). Look to see what's there, then close CCleaner. Log in to your homepage. Open the cookies section of CCleaner again. You should see a new cookie to do with Yahoo. Drag it into the whitelist area. Problem solved. (The reason cookie cleaning is an option is that some cookies basically have spyware-like properties, but are easily deleted.)
  22. I'm still getting this problem in 1.4 Message reads "CCleaner has encountered a problem and needs to close..." The folder concerned appears to have been cleaned, though, and re-opening CCleaner and running it the second time it works normally.
  23. Have it, along with on demand SAS, AVG AS, resident ST, + everyones old faves (they don't get much of a work out these days.) Like it. Frequent updates, good scan, seems to be good at removal...don't really know, been a long time since I've had to remove anything, and the occasional FP. No big deal. When I got SpywareQuake a year or so ago, it was the one application that found and finished the beast off, after running SmitfraudRem. Recommend. It's good, the price is right, support seems good, just keep an eye out for the FP's.
  24. It's not the default, (from memory), open CCleaner, click "options", click "settings" (top), and near the bottom of that window are the secure deletion options. 1, 3, or 7., or the (I think) default option, "normal file deletion(faster)" So, yes, it would be safe to assume a lot of your data on that laptop would be recoverable by someone who knew enough to do it, and it isn't hard to learn a basic level of doing that. There are freeware programs that can do it. Some of the stuff would have been overwritten just with normal use, and that would be harder, or almost impossible to recover. Sri.
  25. I believe that if you delete the file using the OS, then run CCleaner, the previously deleted file will not be changed at all, ie it will still be recoverable. The more secure way would be to erase it using the seven pass erase method in CCleaner, or use eraser for the same job, using 3, 7, or 35 pass overwrite. Just deleting them won't destroy the file..just the header. Once a file has been deleted (rather than erased) the only way to permanently remove it is to overwrite the space it occupied 3, 7 or more times. Eraser can do this. (Wipe free space)
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