drjayphd
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|  #21 Posted on 25.9.04 1501.45
Reposted on: 25.9.11 1501.50 | Originally posted by emma
Originally posted by The Goon
Has anyone ever gone and taken a look at their parents' computers? Man, those tend to be a mess.
I went over to San Diego to set up a friend's mom's computer. (I've met her a number of times, & she's really fun & cool, especially for 70!) I get there 4 days after her daughter had gotten the thing plugged in & had tried to "show mom" how to do stuff. The first thing I had to do was spend an afternoon cleaning up several very nasty bits of adware & other garbage. The second thing I did was hide all IE/Outlook icons/links from her login, & liberally sprinkle Mozilla icons everywhere. We had dinner & I told her all about Mozilla being soooo much better than IE -- she loved the name & thinks the icon is so cute! She thinks (knows) she's super-cool to have a spiffy toy that none of her other friends have. :-) Having gotten her totally indoctrinated from the get-go, she's had virtually no problems -- certainly no crisis-level problems. It's a pretty easy sell, if you can get to them early enough!
Oh, how I would LOVE to do that with my parents. But since they have MSN, what happens when they want to go online?
* Open up MSN's dialer.
* When they sign in, it opens up MSN Explorer
* ...which is based on, as we all know, IE. -_-
I don't think I can get them to use Mozilla instead (works for me, but that doesn't say a whole lot). Thankfully, they've only really gotten burned by Blaster, and after that, I gave them all the updates available then, AdAware, Spybot, AND Zone Alarm. Pretty much anything they'd need is allowed, everything else isn't.
Still, it'd be nice if I didn't have to be unpaid tech support and could just set them on the right path.  | JayJayDean
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| #22 Posted on 26.9.04 0835.28
Reposted on: 26.9.11 0838.56 | It's great that this thread came up, as my home computer was having some issues that were solved by installing Adaware.
Now, when after I installed it I walked away for about 30 minutes and when I came back I had some more spyware find its way into my system. If I put my router and/or my computer on "standby" will it help to prevent this? I'm in the habit of just leaving them on all day and night.
Another semi-related question: My computer's probably five years old, running 98. Lately, after the screen saver kicks on the computer is incredibly slow. I thought the spyware was draining the system resources, but after removing it all I'm still having the slow-down. Is my computer due for a trip to the glue factory? | Guru Zim
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| #23 Posted on 26.9.04 1323.37
Reposted on: 26.9.11 1324.55 | You may want to try a new hard drive with a fresh installation of the operating system. Even a five year old PC can seem new with a fresh install of the OS.
I'd recommend a firewall that allows you to block outgoing connections if you are getting spyware when you are away from the computer. ZoneAlarm has a software "internet lock" feature which basically takes your computer offline.
If you go with ZoneAlarm, use the free version. It's still there, they just make it appear that you have to upgrade to Pro. Keep looking through their site until you find the free one.
Some people do not recommend ZoneAlarm because it allows some Windows services to connect automatically without prompting you. Me, I'm not that paranoid, but I can see how a virus/trojan might be able to exploit that. | bash91
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| #24 Posted on 26.9.04 1327.55
Reposted on: 26.9.11 1329.01 | I have the pro version of ZA and you can set it during initial setup to ask about absolutely everything, up to and including IE. It's been some time since I used the basic version but I would assume it still has the same features.
Tim | Guru Zim
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| #25 Posted on 26.9.04 1334.30
Reposted on: 26.9.11 1335.37 | | I think the knock on it is related to certain Windows internals that it won't ask about - I'll have to research this and come back. | Net Hack Slasher
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|  #26 Posted on 27.9.04 1929.50
Reposted on: 27.9.11 1930.45 | Last night I got smacked with something. I was just visiting a popular cutpaste & Ariticle wrestling site as my browser got hijacked. I restarted my computer and two new icons showed that talked about "shortcuts to Spyware". I deleted the icons and went back to my IE
But it was different my tool par on top (back/forward/stop/ Refresh etc) is now much more spaced out and there's a link that said "Your PC is infected by Spyware - click here to fix" which I am not!
I downloaded the newest Ad-aware and it seemed to clean up all the junk that effected my computer and I manually removed a file that was uploaded with the hijacking. So I think I'm okay there... But my IE browser still has that different look and that link that came up after it got messed up. It says it's Version 6 Sp1. But I don't know if that's what I had before. Should I just install a new IE browser? | Guru Zim
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| #27 Posted on 28.9.04 1026.00
Reposted on: 28.9.11 1027.06 | Yes, the new version of IE is called "Firefox".
Get it here http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/index.html | pieman
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| #28 Posted on 28.9.04 1229.22
Reposted on: 28.9.11 1231.33 | So, you've been praising this Firefox for a while now. Can you give me the price of such a product and what features this will do better than IE? I am not being sarcastic, either. I would like to make an informed decision before I change browsers. Thanks!~
Yes, I clicked on the link and I know what the company says. I want to hear the Guru take.
(edited by pieman on 28.9.04 1329) | David Adams
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| #29 Posted on 28.9.04 1241.07
Reposted on: 28.9.11 1243.25 | Originally posted by pieman
So, you've been praising this Firefox for a while now. Can you give me the price of such a product
It's free, my good man. | Guru Zim
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| #30 Posted on 28.9.04 1417.15
Reposted on: 28.9.11 1422.24 | It's free, and it has far fewer bugs than IE. I also prefer tabbed browsing.
IE has not had any real innovation for a while now. Firefox is where it's at. | pieman
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| #31 Posted on 28.9.04 1536.27
Reposted on: 28.9.11 1537.16 | | Alright. I will try this soon. If it screws up my computer, I am going to blame you! | Merc
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|  #32 Posted on 29.9.04 0052.05
Reposted on: 29.9.11 0053.06 | I generally use Firefox, but keep IE around for the occassional page that is written with mouseovers or scripts that only work with IE. It's poor programming on their part, but what can you do?
There's no way it could screw your pc up though. | estragand
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| #33 Posted on 29.9.04 1329.20
Reposted on: 29.9.11 1330.22 | Originally posted by Merc
I generally use Firefox, but keep IE around for the occassional page that is written with mouseovers or scripts that only work with IE. It's poor programming on their part, but what can you do?
There's no way it could screw your pc up though.
Yeah, I've found Firefox is especially annoying on some bill-paying and banking sites. Form buttons and certain DIV tags don't show up. That can be a problem. Firefox is great for browsing and messing around..but when I want to pay a bill, I use IE. | Cerebus
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| #34 Posted on 29.9.04 1335.24
Reposted on: 29.9.11 1335.59 | I have a friend named Tim who asked me to fix up his parents computer cause they kept getting popups for russian rape sites. I put Spybot and ad-aware on and got the majority of it. but his father kept saying that he didn't know where all "...these damn viruses..." come from. His mom came in from the other room and told us "John, you know where they come from. We don't have sex, so you practice the masturbation in here ALL the time." There were a few minutes of awkard silence before John said "No, it's those damn VIRUSES! Viruses I tell you!"
Thankfully, I have not had to go back over there since then. but me and Tim always say "It's those damn VIRUSES!" every time were near a computer and no one around doesn't get it, but it pretty damn funny. | FriedEgg
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| #35 Posted on 29.9.04 1408.38
Reposted on: 29.9.11 1408.47 | Originally posted by Merc
I generally use Firefox, but keep IE around for the occassional page that is written with mouseovers or scripts that only work with IE. It's poor programming on their part, but what can you do?
There's an extension for Firefox called IEView which allows you to open any page or link in IE.
If the site is a major one (has a big audience) it might be worth following the tech evangelism tips. | Merc
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| #36 Posted on 30.9.04 0133.06
Reposted on: 30.9.11 0135.05 | Originally posted by FriedEgg
There's an extension for Firefox called IEView which allows you to open any page or link in IE.
If the site is a major one
The main one I have issues with is my credit union, they're restricted to my state and only a couple of hundred thousand members. With IE if you mouseover the account name, ie my savings account or my visa, you get a rundown of the last forntnights transactions. With Firefox, nothing happens. I'm not sure ieview would fix that, but I'll check it out. | FriedEgg
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| #37 Posted on 30.9.04 1413.43
Reposted on: 30.9.11 1413.43 | | It doesn't really fix things as much as it makes it easier for you. Instead of having to open IE and copy/paste the url, you can just right click and select open in IE. | Omar Padilla
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| #38 Posted on 2.10.04 0038.05
Reposted on: 2.10.11 0038.28 | Ad-Aware stopped being any help for me a while back and since DL Windows XP Service Pack 2, things have been a bit haywire.
Luckily, HijackThis has managed to help all the spyware attacks stop. Hope it keeps up, too....because SBC Yahoo has been sucking it up. | Finder W
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| #39 Posted on 8.10.04 1808.38
Reposted on: 8.10.11 1812.09 | Has anyone tried Webroot's Spy Sweeper program? I've used it for a little while and found that it got everything without having to use Spyboy and Adaware. It's very precise, and it has a shield that you can be running in the background to protect you as you surf.
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