TeeJay3800

I'm sticking with Sygate Personal Firewall for now because of it's excellent performance and very low resource usage. However, I have Comodo installed on my gf's computer and it certainly seems like a great product.

Excellent suggestions! I would however, recommend FastStone Image Viewer instead of IrfanView.

Firefox and MVPS hosts file...no ads for me either.

Updated as of 12-29-06. MVPS hosts

Actually, using HostsMan you can change from 127.0.0.1 to 0.0.0.0. I'm not exactly sure why you would do that, but its there!

Thanks for the FYI about the update. I updated the file using HostsMan for the first time and it worked perfectly!

For the basic editing that most people most often do, its hard to beat FastStone Image Viewer.

JkDefrag The program has apparently been renamed "JkDefrag" and the version has been updated from 2.27b to 3.0. A couple of noticeable improvements!

For some reason, today the search results are being highlighted again. It's a complete mystery to me why they were not yesterday. (the colored icon at the bottom of the browser has always worked, and I do not use AdBlock). I am using MVPS as well as Mike's Ad Blocking Hosts and was wondering how it is possible to use more than one hosts file simultaneously. Are the entries from both files merged into one file? If it is not advisable to use more than one, how would I go about reverting back to a MVPS-only hosts file?

So far I'm loving the MVPS hosts file, but there is one side affect. I use McAfee SiteAdvisor and even though it is set to do so, it will not highlight search results. For those of you not familiar with SA, each search result is highlighted green, yellow, or red depending on how McAfee rates that particular site. Any idea how I can use that hosts file and still have my searches highlighted?

Thanks for the good info everyone. One more quick question: is it safe to have more than one hosts file installed? Using HostsMan, I installed MVPS Hosts and Mike's Ad Blocking Hosts. Is using more than one hosts unsafe from a security or performance standpoint?

Many parts of California are at high elevation and therefore have cold temps lots of snowfall every year. Especially in nor-cal and in the Sierras.

Thanks for the info! Can anyone give me a basic rundown how to use HostsMan? I've been reading it's site, but I'm kind of at a loss here...

After reading the info on that site, I think this is something I want to try. The installation intructions look complex so I hope I don't mess anything up. Also, they mentioned your PC might slow down a lot when using that host file. To avoid this, you turn the DNS service ON? It seems like additional running services would slow it down, not speed it up.

I've read a lot about RegSeeker on this forum and I'd like to try it, but am concerned about it's safety. Even using the .ini exclusion file, is RegSeeker all that safe to use? I use Microsoft RegClean and of course the registry cleaner included with CCleaner, so is it worth using RegSeeker because of the safety concerns?

Apparently the CL version is completely free, but the GUI version you are "required" to register for a fee. However, from using the GUI trial, I'm not sure what features are disabled, or if you actually have to register at all even though the site and prog say you have to. Other than those quirks, it seems like a great program. Do you know what happens when you select "compact" as opposed to the normal defrag? (it takes a LONG time to run)

I tried the GUI version of that program and it said I had to register because some features are disabled (although I can't tell whats disabled). When I go to the website it doesn't clarify AT ALL if its free software or not. I don't know if I'm using a trial version, a feature-limited version, or a completely free version. Can you clear this up?

I actually find that site pretty useful. True, it is not as reliable and won't provide the in-depth review that knowledgeable people on a forum can give, but it does give you some basic info and advice on your log without having to wait for forum replies.

I hope you are correct and that Microsoft integrates several of Sysinternals' excellent utilities into Vista. However, considering Microsoft's reputation on these kinds of issues, I doubt that will happen.

I've posted it before on this forum, but Contig with the Power Defragmenter GUI is what I use for a lightweight defrag program. It's fast and defrags very well. Contig Power Defragmenter GUI

No that one didn't work either. So I tried re-copying that .dll file into System32, but now its giving me an error that says something about the file being in use and it won't let me replace it, even immediately after a fresh reboot. I'm not sure what to do now, but I appreciate your help.

Hmm I followed the instructions to a T, but when I double click on the file, it just brings up the Display properties window and there are no more options in the drop down menu. I'm lost at this point.

Sweet, thanks!

I've got it. Thanks man!

After using AntiVir for quite some time, I've switched to AVG Free.