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[Brian Boru]

2024 June browser reports from Malwarebytes:

Vivaldi

…

Edge

That's over 600 a day. Is that hi or lo compared to yours?

 

[ZedClampet]

2024 June browser reports from Malwarebytes:

Vivaldi

…

Edge

That's over 600 a day. Is that hi or lo compared to yours?

I don't use Malwarebytes anymore, so I can't give you an apples to apples comparison, but when I go to PCG, my adblock blocks up to 60 ads on a single page, same thing on the sports forum I go to. If this is counting ads the same way Malwarebytes does, then it's hard for me to imagine getting less than 600 in a day. For one thing, I open maybe 100 threads a day on the sports forum for moderation purposes, and so that would be at least 6000 ads blocked a day.

However, it's possible they are counting differently. Maybe Malwarebytes is counting only unique ads.

 

[Colif]

ublock blocks 40 things on this page, Bitdefender only showing 8
I have no idea how much I block in a month as I don't track it.

I can't run malwarebytes as it wants to do the same job as Bitdefender and they argue. I trust bitdefender more so it stays.

 

[Brian Boru]

I don't track it

Me neither, MBAM marketing is getting more pushy these days

 

[Brian Boru]

@Pifanjr You mentioned NewPipe elsewhere as an Android workaround for YT ads.

Do you happen to know if it would work on (some of) the ways Android can work on PC? If yes, any recs?

YT is getting pushy about ad blocking in browser.

 

[Pifanjr]

@Pifanjr You mentioned NewPipe elsewhere as an Android workaround for YT ads.

Do you happen to know if it would work on (some of) the ways Android can work on PC? If yes, any recs?

YT is getting pushy about ad blocking in browser.

I haven't had any problems with uBlock Origin not blocking YouTube ads, but then I don't watch YouTube all that often.

I've also never emulated Android on my PC before. I've heard of Blue Stacks which does that, but when I last looked into it it seemed too much work to be worth it.

 

[Colif]

my reading is Brian uses a browser on phone to watch Youtube... hence question about android.

I use the app myself.

It would be odd to run bluestacks on a windows PC when you can just use Firefox and not see ads in YT... but then I pay for premium as I didn't want to fight them. Also run Ublock and Bitdefender browser guard.
I dislilke the in video ads that people are making now. At least I can skip those.

 

[Brian Boru]

it seemed too much work to be worth it

Ok, thanks for that, I'm not much into work these days

Brian uses a browser on phone to watch Youtube

Nope, never watch YT on phone—sometimes I want to see what's on screen. YT has been experimenting for a while, I get a few hours of 'Blocking ads not allowed' which then goes away after a while. I assume they'll settle on some longer-term approach soon.

you can just use Firefox and not see ads in YT

I just did and got thru half a dozen videos without hassle. Tried same on Vivaldi and one was still blocked.

No worries, there was life before YT—oh yes there was!—and there'll be life after it if they get too obnoxious.

 

[Colif]

My life before Youtube was TV and I won't ever use that again unless I have a triple lobotomy first. The advertising on Youtube isn't as obnoxious as TV, at least I don't get a batch of commercials every 10 minutes that seem to last longer than the shows around them. I do pay for premium just to avoid seeing ads on my phone... but then I set Firefox as my default browser on phone so lots of things don't load now.

I only use chrome for two things now:

1. Gmail
2. My bank - and this is only out of habit

I stopped watching Youtube from it years ago, for some reason I don't see any comments under videos. Even with all my add ons turned off. So I just swapped to Firefox and apart from some weirdness on YouTube, it mostly works... unlike Chrome, its not fighting against ad blockers, not enforcing Manifest v3 which is what Chrome is doing now

 

[Colif]

Microsoft's weather app is advertising an alternate Antivirus program that isn't from Microsoft.

Open weather app
Notice a warning in bottom left
click and get taken to site selling AV

temp isn't showing wind chill factor, its actually -5c
I don't see many ads so I wasn't prepared for it

 

[Colif]

Good thing Steam doesn't use Crowdstrike or people wouldn't be amused at all this weekend. As it stands, its just Blizzard AFAIK so only some people suffered from not being able to play games.

I was lucky and did my shopping yesterday before everything stopped working. I wonder how long it take for some places to recover.

Caused so many Windows PC to BSOD and only fix offered is to boot into Safe mode and remove update... if its a win 11 machine, that isn't straight forward. Unless its already set up to let you do that you need to boot off USB and change those settings manually via BCDEDIT and then restart PC and boot into safe mode.

Added barrier to many PC is they have Bitlocker and you need to know your key to open up the file system. SO how many businesses are going to fail that step?

Its the ultimate test of backup processes.

Its also extremely stupid to have so many businesses all using the same software. Internet meant to be multi point, they breaking it by tying it so tightly together. Need to diversify to avoid this in the future.

Idiots.

 

[Brian Boru]

so many businesses all using the same software

MS says 8m PC affected. 8m out of 1bn isn't a lot, less than 1%.
Problem is a lot of big infra PCs were hit, so impact a lot bigger than 1%.

Idiots

The idiot moniker rests mainly with Crowdstrike. It's extremely amateurish to push an update out to everyone all at once, without first putting it thru a pilot run.

I agree customers with ops-critical PCs should have delayed install in place, so they get a bit of idiot too. Plus a disk image or clone of the critical PCs system disk, ready to slot in for the cost of 15-30 minutes downtime.

Nice to think a lot of people will learn a lot from this

 

[Brian Boru]

USA's National Institute of Standards and Technology has updated password recommendations.

Included are:
Don't require regular changing;
Don't require different types of characters.

 

[Brian Boru]

DefenderUI

This freebie from well-regarded VoodooSoft looks worthwhile if Windows Defender is your only anti-malware app. Provides access to otherwise hidden functions.

 

[Colif]

Jay makes video about software everyone should use.

The very first comment under it addresses the Elephant in the room. Why not just use HWINFO. He had a ton of requested improvements to the software he made video about -- they already covered by HWINFO. Its also free like the one he suggested and is way better than HWMonitor in CPU -Z

Info - How to use HWINFO to track temps on PC

Download HWINFO - https://www.hwinfo.com/download/ when you open the app, click the tick box next to show sensors only, and click run in the next window, click on the gear icon in bottom right, this opens settings. On General tab, under polling period, set it to 500 and click the set button...

forums.pcgamer.com

 

[Brian Boru]

Jay makes video about software everyone should use

Yeah I saw that and had same reaction as you. Hope Jay's health issues aren't compromising his content.

 

[Brian Boru]

Windows 11 legacy Taskbars and Start Menus​

Info from excellent video by Memory's Tech Tips

RetroBar

This will be nailed on for me whenever I move to Win 11, for the simple reason that one feature is to allow the Taskbar to dock to any side of the screen—I have mine on the left, and I dislike Win 11 only allowing bottom placement.

I might also like the Quick launch toolbar, altho I love Win 10-11's Jump Lists—both together should be even better.

Open-Shell

I rarely use the Start Menu on Windows 10, but I quite liked Win 7's implementation, so I'll definitely check this one out when the time comes.

NB do not use Classic Shell, it's out-of-date for Win 11.

Bulk Crap Uninstaller​

Not sure if I mentioned this here before, but after making a disk image give this a spin if you want to look at what you have installed and do a clean-up. It finds all apps, not just crap.

TechRadar review

 

[Colif]

Glad I missed this when it happened, half my retirement money disappeared

I know its back now but Google set up a cloud service and accidentally had a one year use by date. Oops, its only 136 billion... who will notice? whats that? Australia? Is that the small country in Europe near Germany?

 

[Colif]

Jays Inevitable video

 

[Brian Boru]

5 Games I Use to Benchmark My Windows 11 PC

5 Games I Use to Benchmark My Windows 11 PC

These games give me a good idea of how well my Windows PC performs.

www.makeuseof.com

Fortnite
Red Dead Redemption 2
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Call of Duty: Warzone
Black Myth: Wukong Benchmarking Tool

Author explains how each one is usefull.

 

[Brian Boru]

How I Properly Uninstalled Adobe Creative Cloud on Windows

Here's How I Properly Uninstalled Adobe Creative Cloud on Windows

It's a pain to uninstall Adobe Creative Cloud, but I'll make it easy for you.

www.makeuseof.com

Adobe has a long non-illustrious track record with the state of its software—back in 90s Photoshop vied with AOL for which could make the biggest mess on your PC.

Then there was the far-too-long reign of Adobe PDF Reader, which had 2 distinctions—er, make that 'This Stinks-Shun'!
♣ Perhaps the biggest general security threat carrier for Windows-based malware for probably over a decade.
♦ A real performance hog, really sloppy lack of optimization and a great cure if your PC was running faster than you liked.

But it's not all bad for Adobe—I can't praise their marketing enough, to keep such dismal software not only in business but thriving, and to capture the creative luvvies-with-extra-cash market.

Author lays out his method to get rid of Adobe CC in only 10 minutes! Only 10, oh joy

 

[Brian Boru]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8ty1wn0TE


Some good tips to avoid/minimize gotchas.

Especially important is the tip about not having more than one drive installed.
Nice one too about avoiding having to use an online account.

 

[Brian Boru]

Jim's Toolbox looks like a nice UI for a load of system and other PC commands, diagnostics, info and small software.

NB you need to run it as Admin.

 

[Colif]

refresh/restore are repairs in the same way using a hammer can repair things... can also break them. I would just clean install over either. I have seen reset remove windows before... thats a step too far.

Most of those are just links to things that aren't that hidden now.

curious where reactivate takes you.

some of the diagnostic tools aren't built in, wonder if it includes them or just links

registry tools should have one link to create registry backup at top of page... as well. Mess that up and windows becomes painful.

Screenshots on here show more:

Download Jim's Toolbox - MajorGeeks

Jim's Toolbox (not from our Jim) provides you with a set of tools for performing various fixes on your Windows 10 and 11 machine. It can help you fix/diagnose your Windows install, fix the registry, add functions, fix bugs, quickly install software after a clean install, and change the look of...

www.majorgeeks.com

Its only better than Norton tools in that its free... if you like advertising in your apps

 

[Brian Boru]

registry tools should have one link to create registry backup at top of page

Oh yeah, that's a good and important point!

better than Norton tools

I don't know if their are any self-made tools in Jim's. I haven't looked thru it much but as far as I can see from the description it's just a nice UI for other Win and external tools. With all the horsing around Gen Digital did this century, I wouldn't touch Norton Tools—and I haven't see them top of any credible reviews, being generally rated 'good' and in the top 10 utility suites.