Still no real "super winner"...each has pluses and minuses. There are those who use Windows' included firewall and Defender and are happy with them. Others prefer to add one of the 'free' antivirals like Avast (it has a 'paid' version as well). There are sites like The Top 10 and Tom's Guides which review software...and express their opinions, but it comes down to what works best on your system and what you can afford. How can you k...
Before dealing with how this sucks and doesn't, download another browser (Vivaldi, Chrome, Brave...etc.) and use it until the Edge/IE vulnerability is fixed. And...last week Google revealed a Windows vulnerability, as well. You can read about the Edge/IE vulnerability here, if you're of a mind to do so: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1011 " It is Google's policy to disclose any vulnerability after 90 days if the notified com...
Neowin reports that MS has released a Critical Update for Flash earlier than its March "Patch Tuesday" for multiple Windows platforms (Ext. link). You can read about the update itself here: https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms17-feb?ranMID=24542&ranEAID=TnL5HPStwNw&ranSiteID=TnL5HPStwNw-QClJXhxHeYdSrnWUFLmyYQ&tduid=(4bbadb17428544e57e0af542ab6f0be2)(256380)(2459594)(TnL5HPStwNw-QClJXhxHeYdSrnWUFLmyYQ)() "...the update "resolves vuln...
This just in via our Canadian correspondent Hankers: Yahoo has been contacting some of its users to warn them that their accounts have been compromised using "forged cookies". It's the latest security embarrassment for the company, which revealed in September that it had suffered a data breach two years earlier that affected 500 million user accounts ; and admitted in October that a second security incident had affected around a billion accounts ... "The invest...
A link in Google search using a 'top of the page' paid for ad by scammers...in this case, a MS Support scam (not really MS). "On Wednesday, a top Google search result that seemed to be an advertisement for retail giant Amazon.com was actually something much more sinister—a malicious link to a Windows support scam. The problematic ad was first reported by ZDNet , but it seems that this problem has happened before. Those who clicked on the ad were directed to a...
Things seem to get worse, not better. Ransomware is now the most common form of malware. Now ransomware will lock your OS, as well as hold your data for ransom, bricking your computer unless you pay. "In the space of a year, ransomware appears to have evolved on from the simple but effective strategy of locking down the files of infected targets until they pay a ransom, to incorporating additional malicious elements, such as stealing personal or financial data...
Valentine Day's coming, boys and girls...your art is important! It's great to create everything from scratch, but not everyone can rely on those skills... So along comes Freepik to help you! They've got what you want...and free! Not just limited to holidays, either...so if you need something for your art, visit the site and see what they've got available! Just go here and browse... http://www.freepik.com/
An incredible concept...but " four years after they were first proposed, scientists have managed to add a fourth dimension - the movement of time - to a crystal for the first time, giving it the ability to act as a kind of perpetual 'time-keeper'." The concept is explained in the linked article, as well as here: http://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-just-created-the-world-s-first-time-crystal "They did this by chaining together a line of ytter...
January saw Adobe update its extension on Chrome browser systems. It did this silently alongside its " Adobe Acrobat Reader DC" software. No one saw this in the changelog, nor was there a "Do not install the extension" choice. Supposedly users got a Chrome notification after they opened the browser to enable it or delete it after the update. I don't remember any notification. When I checked my extensions, it was there, but not enabled. I've done away with it. ...
Generally, you can tell a phishing attack from bad grammar and spelling, or a fishy url (sorry, I couldn't resist). This time, it's different: "An email lands in the target inbox from the hacked address, and here's where it gets tricky: The phishing email uses a legitimate subject line, text, and attachments from emails already sent by that account, making it look completely legitimate. The phishing email comes with an "attachment" that is actually a scr...
Miguel Ferrer, a fine character actor whose most recent role was assistant director Owen Granger on NCIS: Los Angeles , has died at age 61, of throat cancer. He was George Clooney's cousin. Ferrer, a veteran of a host of TV dramas and movies, began his career in the early 1980s with guest shots on TV series, such as Trapper John M.D. and Miami Vice . In 1990 he scored a signature role as FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield on David Lynch's sm...
I've written a good deal about our shrinking privacy, and the Fourth Amendment in the past in connection with the internet and the NSA. The latest comes in the form of an Executive Order, thus bypassing the up or down vote of the Congress, and will be added to the timelines of the most significant expansions of domestic surveillance in the modern era. E.O. 12333 further erodes the barriers of between law enforcement surveillance and NSA spying. With access to th...
If you buy stuff on Amazon...if you haven't, you probably will, sometime, you probably check out buyer reviews...with some it's easy to spot a fake review. Others, not so much. So, it isn't news (I hope) that sellers like good reviews and there's a group of folks who earn money by 'reviewing' products for pay. Many sites don't do this, allowing only buyers to leave reviews, but there are 'work arounds' such as sending the 'reviewer' sample...
Ghacks has reported (as had Neowin) changes in privacy in W10, which has been a concern of Windows users for a long time. " You can load https://account.microsoft.com/privacy#/ in your browser of choice to open the new "Your Privacy" page on the Microsoft Account website." - gHacks "In a nutshell: Microsoft will improve the privacy set up experience and privacy settings in the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update, and it has launched a new online privacy dashboard th...
Chrome's "autofill" for forms is a convenient feature, and it would be great, except that it 'leaks' information. Websites which have forms to fill out can be a pain, and filling out forms is a pain, but what you see on the form is organized into "fields". You don't necessarily see all the fields. Some can be 'hidden' and get information from your browser you might not want the website to get. Pretty sneaky, imho. At the gHacks link, there's a scr...