The reason I’m writing this is because I saw the review on The Windows Club and wanted to add my two cents to Ankit Gupta’s review. This is NOT an “instead of” app. This will not replace your current AV software. But no AV software is perfect, even if you’re an exemplary user of the internet, with great browsing habits (you do use a guest account to browse, right?) is perfect. The AV test results themselves show that. So…if something sneaks by what do you do. You sh...
Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and Mail.ru and perhaps more, have leaked usernames, email addresses and unencrypted passwords. The security firm that discovered the breach, Hold Security, believes that many of the accounts involved in this leak have not been previously leaked. According to its analysis there are over 272 million unique email and unencrypted password pairs, where 42.5 million have not been previously leaked. Hold Security was able to get a hold of the data for ...
The Windows Club published about a very useful app: “Hardware Identify” which (especially when upgrading or updating) ends the notifications regarding “unknown devices or hardware”. “Hardware Identify will help identify unknown hardware on your system. This program does not help you download drivers but helps let you know what the hardware is so you know what drivers to find. For example say you just reinstalled a computer and the device manager shows multiple ...
Sorry, Cortana no speaka Chrome, Firefox, Vivaldi, Google, DuckDuckGo…or anything but Edge and Bing. Microsoft's reason for doing so is that the changing of the search provider and browser supposedly compromises the search experience on the operating system. “Unfortunately, as Windows 10 has grown in adoption and usage, we have seen some software programs circumvent the design of Windows 10 and redirect you to search providers that were not designed to work with...
April 25, 1915…the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli to fight against the Turks, allies of the Germans, in WWI. They waged an eight month fight, and ultimately lost, but they established a tradition of being part of the fight despite the deaths of 8,700 Australians and 2,700 New Zealanders…theirsacrifices were not for naught. This tradition and spirit were rallying cries in WWII, when the ANZAC forces fought Rommel in North Africa, and the Ja...
Not a big surprise, but yes, the FBI has a vault of “Zero Day” vulnerabilities, and so do other agencies, and not just in the US. This is exactly the opposite of how things “should” be…ideally a vulnerability is found, a patch or fix is created and then published so everyone is a bit safer. This vault of vulnerabilities works exactly the opposite, and everyone is, therefore, a bit less secure. The Tor penetration is an example of this: The browser is Firefox based and was c...
The Windows Club has published a pretty extensive list of tools to help you if you get zapped. First of all, it’ll probably be Petya or Locky as they’re the most common ones encountered currently. First you have to identify the malware. You upload the ransom note or a file which has been encrypted by the malware (and hope it identifies the malware) here: https://id-ransomware.malwarehunterteam.com/index.php There’s a great list of the tools here: http://www.thew...
Sorry to relay this to you folks. Apparently his body was discovered at his home in Minnesota early this morning. He had to cancel a few shows recently…the latest because of the “flu”. He sold more than 100 million records in his career, 7 Grammys…who’ll forget “Purple Rain” or “While my Guitar Gently Weeps” in 2004? He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, was married twice. Anyway, sorry to...
Opera already has adblocking, and now it has added a free VPN with unlimited bandwidth (Opera won’t make you pay for the bandwidth you use) which spoofs your IP address. In other words, say you’re sitting in L.A., your browser’s VPN will make it look like you’re in London (or anywhere). It’s free…something which could cost $48/year. So…say a Youtube vid weren’t available in the US, it would be for you since you appear to be in London. The VPN would also keep people from tracking...
Solid tips…some might not apply if you aren’t running a business, but they can be translated to the family level. The first tip about backups is a great one. The only backup you’ll ever regret is the one you didn’t do. “1. Back up your files regularly and keep a recent backup off-site. The only backup you’ll ever regret is one you left for “another day.” Backups can protect your data against more than just ransomware: theft, fire, flood or accidental deletion ...
Chrome 50 was released yesterday as a stable version with some new features, but has ended support for several OSs, among them Windows XP, Windows Vista, OS X 10.6, OS X 10.7, and OS X 10.8. Google promised to do that in November 2015, and they’re on time. Older versions on these OSs won’t stop working yet, but they won’t get updated, and Google hasn’t guaranteed that Google account sign in, syncing, etc. will still work. So, if you have one of these older OSs and use C...
My thanks to Martin Brinkmann for his summary of these bulletins...3-4 'Critical' updates, depending on the OS. You can read more here: http://www.ghacks.net/2016/04/12/microsoft-security-bulletins-april-2016/?_m=3n%2e0038%2e1848%2ehj0ao01hy5%2e1x9g
Interesting…first, what does Brave browser do? “The browser's revenue model, Eich explained nearly three months ago, was based on ad blocking. Brave will scrub websites of most of their ads and all tracking, then replace those now-empty slots with ads it sells. Seventy percent of the revenue from Brave's ad sales would be shared with publishers (55%) and users (15%). The latter will be able to turn that money -- in Bitcoin form -- over to their favorite sites or keep it. Br...
Adobe issued an emergency update to Flash on Thursday due to a vulnerability that allowed ransomware delivery to Windows PCs. Adobe is urging all flash player users on Windows, Mac and Linux PCs to update their Flash Players. So. If you’re using Chrome, force the update by going to settings (in the hamburger menu at the right upper corner of the browser)> About. This will force the browser to search for updates. When found and installed, you’ll be told to relaunch. Vival...
Merle passed away in his home in Redding, CA today, his manager confirmed. He’d recently been hospitalized with recurrent bouts of pneumonia, and COPD. Haggard is a Country Music Hall of Fame inductee and was recently nominated for yet another Grammy for his duet with Don Henley. Rest in peace, Merle. You made life better for many.