Safety on Computers

[copycat]

The Microsoft website also has links to Adaware and Spybot -- Search and Destroy which are two free utilities and they work really well.  Be a little more careful with Spybot because it requires a higher level of expertise to use.  The following information is provided as is and shows no endorsement of these products by Microsoft or any other company.  It is in fact, just my opinion and I take no responsibility if in fact using one of these programs makes a bad situation worse which is highly unlikely.  Have a great day, everyone!

AFAIK, Ad-Aware does not automatically remove stuff unless you specify it.

[Jeysie]

Or you could just run Mozilla/FireFox or Opera, and be cautious in referencing freeware/shareware programs you're thinking of installing against lists of known spyware-containing programs, and not have to bother with Ad-Aware or Spybot.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[dew7]

Mozilla costs money to run without ads
FireFox has not reached version 1
I do not know about Opera
Jeysie, please correct me if I am wrong.  I am not sure about the accuracy of these statements.

[Jeysie]

You've got it a little backwards.

Opera is the one where the free version has ads. Opera is *not* spyware, though. If you choose the text ads, Opera uses the same Google Adsense version that website authors use. So if you currently block Adsense on webpages, you'll block Opera's text ads. And if you don't mind Adsense, Opera's text ads work the same way.

The ads itself is a part of the main toolbar. The toolbar with ad takes up about as much screen space as IE6 with the main buttons showing pictures and text. Except that with Opera you can put things like the status and address bars into the main bar so that one toolbar will be all you need... can't do that with IE!

I'd urge you not to let the ads keep you from downloading Opera and giving it a try. It's small and fast, has great (X)HTML and CSS support, and tons of customizability and features, both in security and regular browsing. They're very quick about security fixes, too.

Mozilla and FireFox are technically different products by the same company.

Mozilla, IIRC, is sort of the "all-in-one" deal. It's past 1.0 at this stage. It's a nice browser... great (X)HTML and CSS support, and a healthy set of features... definitely also blows IE out of the water. I just personally don't use it because I don't find it as customizable or feature-rich as Opera (plus it's a larger download and IMHO a bit clunkier-feeling), but someone who's less of a tweaker would like it.

FireFox is Mozilla's "browser-only" deal. It's smaller and faster than Mozilla and has the same rendering capabilities, but it's also less feature-enabled at the get-go. To add features, you pick and choose and install add-ons called "extensions". It hasn't reached 1.0 yet, but it's a stable and fully-functional browser. (And still worlds better than IE, IMHO.)

Mozilla is also open-source and freeware. So if you see a fix that needs to be made, and you've got some programming abilities, you can roll up your sleeves and concoct something.

I'd really urge you to download Mozilla and Opera and give them a try, Dew. I have to admit I find it kind of strange that someone so concerned about security uses IE as their main browser... it's like walking around with a target painted on your back. And IMHO there's a whole ton of other reasons to switch from IE, too.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[dew7]

It is funny that you mention Target because that is one of my current jobs and like I have mentioned before I really hope and desire to be a third-fifth grade elementary school teacher.  However, the whole experience in 2001 about being forced to quit from an after school program job has soured me somewhat on teaching and now I am much more careful about my actions.  I also really like and enjoy computers and maybe I will try and get a job at Microsoft someday.  However, I like to move around and would not like being stuck in a cubicle.  Decisions, decisions, etc.  I will try one of the browsers.  My thought was actually FireFox because they gave it good reviews in PC World magazine recently.  What do you think?  Thanks for your help.  The following is an excerpt from the microsoft public windows 98 gen_discussion newsgroup
Let me know what you think.

Copy/paste the following line into an IE Addressbar, click on GO, then
> copy/paste the results into your reply:
>
>     javascript:navigator.appMinorVersion

it's too late, I've already gone back to ie4, what info is this going to
provide? I'm haven't put much work into the new instance, so it wouldn't be
much loss to upgrade to ie6 just to give this if it's worthwhile.

I like mozilla, but I don't like not being able to keep up with the
security updates or being able to use the knowledge base.

[Jeysie]

I don't know what the NG message means by the javascript thing, but... you don't necessarily have to get rid of IE completely (unless you want to), just don't use it for your main browser. Do most of your surfing with a different browser, and just use IE for the Win Updates and Knowledge Base. (And gripe at M$ for making their WinUpdate portal proprietary.)

Peace & Luv, Liz

[copycat]

Do most of your surfing with a different browser, and just use IE for the Win Updates and Knowledge Base. (And gripe at M$ for making their WinUpdate portal proprietary.)

Even better, do all of your surfing with a different browser, except the Win Updates ('cos you can't do that with a non-IE browser, I've learned too. )

[dew7]

Copycat, which is your favorite browser?

[copycat]

Copycat, which is your favorite browser?

At the moment, Netscape7, but once I switch over to Linux it'll either be Konqueror or Firefox. Due to the fact my video drivers in Linux aren't video card specific, the resolution is too low, meaning things take up too much space. I've noticed the driver for the ATI 9800 XT-chip is now available from ATI's website, but apparently there's two versions. It depends on your version of X-windows IIRC, to choose the correct version and my first Linux-task is fixing the bootmanager. Everything else Linux-related is put on hold until the bootmanager is fixed.

[dew7]

I am seriosly considering giving FireFox a try.
Anyone heard about the Sasser worm that affects XP but leaves 98SE alone?

[dew7]

Anyone out there?  Also, what does everyone think about the Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 that should be released by the end of the year?

[Yonkey]

Anything gonna be in it that I haven't already installed from Windows Update?  

[copycat]

Anything gonna be in it that I haven't already installed from Windows Update?  

Probably a lot of things you don't actually need.

[dew7]

I heard that it may even have compatibility issues because XP SP 2 is supposed to be very different.

[dew7]

I would suggest buying the June issue of PCWORLD for an excellent article on the spyware problem.  Spybot -- Search and Destroy and Adaware received top ranking.  Both are free --- however if you want the full version of Adaware which is Adaware Plus then you will have to pay for it ($15 one time fee I think)
You can also due what I due which is get a subscription to this magazine for only $19.95 with free software utilities.  Not a bad deal in my opinion.
(This reflects my own opinion and while it shows an endorsement of PCWORLD the user is not guaranteed the satisfaction that I have reading the magazine -- it depends on user's expertise and whether they have money to burn on a magazine)

[Louisiana Night]

Maximum PC is a good alternative, if you don't have expertise in computers. They tend to over simplify things though.

Maximum PC

[dew7]

The site mentions how anyone interested in security needs a third party program to lock 98/98SE

* dew7

but you should not be running 98/98SE

* dew7 if you are interested in security -- the lie continue eeye.com currently has two flaws with the NT code -- one only affects XP while the other affects the whole NT source code --- Just Face It Folks if you want a totally secure PC then you must use one that is not connected to the Internet

[Louisiana Night]

Well, now that we have an answer, is it time to end this thread?  

P.S. I'm going to have to find some laughing smilies.

[Storm]

It's the "me" tag... it's activated when you write "/me" and turns the rest of the message to red with the poster's name at the begining, like this:

* Storm finds this very amusing

(here I wrote the tag myself so it would only do the one line).

The parser must have gotten confused when you typed "98/98SE/ME"  

[Louisiana Night]

So a read only PC is the solution, or one that only uses memory. Actually, I've got one of those around here somewhere.