Ramblings of an old Doc
DrJBHL's Articles In Personal Computing » Page 66
August 29, 2021 by DrJBHL
Not about "my browser can beat up yours".  This is about the endless privacy invasions by Chrome, and Google selling info and your security without a second thought (see external link above). Enough is enough!  Here are four good ones and four to ditch asap.  https://privacyaustralia.net/best-secure-browser/  
August 23, 2021 by DrJBHL
Make sure to update your browsers, if you use Chrome or any of the browsers using Chrome's engine. Google has issued "high" security warnings regarding possible points of code compromise, but hasn't given a lot of information about the vulnerabilities in order to allow users of the world's most popular browsers time to update before hackers can utilize the vulnerabilities.   Thanks, Hank. 👍
June 25, 2021 by DrJBHL
Most of us appreciate privacy and not becoming a supposedly anonymized piece of data for sale. Brave has entered this field now, as well with a search engine which has more privacy than others. “Brave Search is the industry’s most private search engine, as well as the only independent search engine, giving users the control and confidence they seek in alternatives to big tech,” Brave co-founder and CEO Brendan Eich  says . “Unlike older search engines that tra...
June 4, 2021 by DrJBHL
Norton...remember how much we loved it? Me either. “As the crypto economy continues to become a more important part of our customers’ lives, we want to empower them to mine cryptocurrency with Norton, a brand they trust,” said Vincent Pilette, CEO of NortonLifeLock. “Norton Crypto is yet another innovative example of how we are expanding our Cyber Safety platform to protect our customers’ ever-evolving digital lives." Really? Is he joking? This is incredi...
June 2, 2021 by DrJBHL
MS finally released WinGet 1.0 which was planned and mentioned at Build 2020. “A package manager is designed to help you save time and frustration,” Microsoft’s Demitrius Nelon explained when the firm announced its plans for WinGet. “Essentially, it is a set of software tools that help you automate the process of getting software on your machine. You specify which apps you want installed, and it does the work of finding the latest version (or the exact on...
March 10, 2021 by DrJBHL
I receive Ghacks updates routinely. Today I received one which while nothing out of the ordinary for MS, caused me some concern regarding the March 2021 Cumulative Update issued on Patch Tuesday (yesterday). "The updates patch security issues, all with the second-highest severity rating of important. One of the additional issues that these updates patch is a printing to FILE ports vulnerability. The issue is patched in updates for all versions of Windows, from Windows 7 to Windows 10...Accor...
January 29, 2021 by DrJBHL
I'm using Brave as my default, but am looking at Opera and Edge, and I'm wondering which extensions you guys use and if they slow you down. I might also take a look at Vivaldi with its stacked tabs.
January 11, 2021 by DrJBHL
Came across this article which caught my eye since the net seems to have an inordinate hunger for info about what you look at, wear, sites you visit, your health and more. So, the authors offered six browser extensions to leave slimmer pickins on the net...in the link above.
December 21, 2020 by DrJBHL
Came across this article this morning, and thought it best to report on it to prevent possible problems for those running ChkDsk (Windows' native utility to discover and fix corruptions in its file system when adding /f to the command ChkDsk. This affects SSDs only, apparently. If you have updated to W10 20H2, do not run ChkDsk or worse, ChkDsk /f. "One of the authors at  Planet3DNow  say they ran the utility with the /f parameter, which prompts a system reboot so that it can ...
August 30, 2020 by DrJBHL
I've written in the past about W10 God mode ( https://forums.wincustomize.com/498183/page/1/#3767818 ). This isn't a rehash.  gHacks' Ashwin published a good, really useful and very detailed article about a new, portable app you can use and put on your repair tools stick. It's an impressive app that also (on right click) gives many personalization options. Ashwin made many screenshots to illustrate his text. The article can be found here (and is linked above). "Though Win10 All ...
July 22, 2020 by DrJBHL
The first is Windows Repair Toolbox v3.0.2.5, which you can find here: https://www.oldergeeks.com/downloads/file.php?id=1599 It works for Windows XP through W10. It contains tens of utilities for the repair of just about any problem, and is an essential for anyone having to repair family computers. Check out its contents at the link, and you'll see why I didn't list the utilities included. The second is a rather new one, for the removal of remnants of antiviral programs which mig...
July 18, 2020 by DrJBHL
Want to go completely dark? It's easy on the eyes, let me tell you.\ At How to Geek, you can get easy peasy instructions on how to engage the dark Edge Theme, as well as Edge's latest and greatest feature, forcing dark mode on every website you visit (Edge's dark theme and forced dark website mode in the screenie below). You can find a great "How To" engage both Dark Mode and Force Dark Website and more at the link above or here:  https://www.howtogeek.com/360357/how-to-enable-dar...
July 3, 2020 by DrJBHL
I had installed Edge previously, and I haven't seen what the author of the above linked article is describing. Not sure I'd ask anyone to check if it's true after reading what he wrote, though. This really borders on monopolistic practice, considering Edge isn't IE base at all, rather it's Chromium based. I wonder if any of you folks have seen anything like what's described in the Verge article, though. This, along with wonky updates makes me really wonder "Quo vadis MS?".   An...
June 30, 2020 by DrJBHL
This is a good tool to have, especially considering the wonkiness of MS W10 updates. It's more detailed description can be found here:  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4538642/windows-10-restore-lost-files  . It has 3 modes of deployment (from the Thurrott article): Default mode.  This mode uses the Master File Table (MFT) to locate lost files. Default mode works well when the MFT and file segments, also called File Record Segments (FRS), are present. Segme...
May 23, 2020 by DrJBHL
Saw this article on MakeUseOf (linked above) offering five powerful alternatives to MS's improved Task Manager. Right now I'm trying SysInternals Mark Russinovich's Process Explorer which looks best to me for my needs. If you like Process Explorer, it's landing page is here:  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer  . If not, there are four other good ones in the MakeUseOf article.  Thought you'd be interested in this tool which has good expl...