slowday444

Why do the freeware sites like MajorGeeks list updates days ahead of the auto updates that MS send out?

Thank you Chris!

First of all, so this doesn't fall under the domain of hijacking, let me say I shutdown without CCleaning and with CCleaning prior to shutdown and there was no difference. But mostly, I wanted to thank Dennis for bringing UPHClean to my attention. I've been having sloooow shutdowns for a long time and wondering what the heck was going on. I installed this program and now instant shutdowns! Thank You!

I totally agree with that! In fact, on my Vista notebook, despite the fact that Windows Defender is set to show the icon and under Taskbar Properties Always Show is selected, it is never in the notification area unless I manually open WD.

It is so easy to disable that Avira nag in Vista (easy in XP too). Computer>C>Program Files>Avira (Folder)>Properties>avnotify.exe>Traverse Folder>check Deny That is all there is to it!

Received this email from my son today. Claims it's the real deal. I just pasted it and have no idea if it's urban legend or not. If it isn't, I believe you would like to know about it! Jury Duty Scam DO NOT DELETE WITHOUT READING ! This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced. The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo; your identity was just stolen. The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado. This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud. Check it out here: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm And here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp

So I decided to give Avira a look. There was a giant thread about it on Wilders>Other Anti>Virus forum. One of the few cons was the nag you get when it updates. There was a link on how to disable it in XP and earlier but nothing about Vista. As it turned out it was really easy, except now I don't understand how I was able to access the folder and file and make the change. I'm going to paste my thread and if you have any input or theories fire away! "Disabling the nag is really simple in Vista. Computer>C>Program Files>Avira (Folder)>avnotify.exe>Traverse Folder>Deny for all users listed. Make sure you have administration rights. Safe mode is not necessary! I edit! So I did an update before a boot and indeed there wasn't a nag. I then rebooted to make sure the change stayed by looking at the file. I now cannot open avnotify.exe. I even setup an Administrator account, which appeared to be almost like safe mode, to no avail. I didn't actually try safe mode. The fix worked though because there is still no nag. But I have two questions. Number one, how did I ever open that file originally? Remember, I was not in safe mode. Number two, can I not access now because of the "Deny" setting? If I really wanted the nag back (for what?) I'd try safe mode or just uninstall/reinstall Avira. Opinions appreciated!"

It's so interesting how numerous extensions that are not compatible with Ff3 have been hacked. I love the "combination" of the built in Ff spell check, with its underlining ability and SpellBound, with its ability to check everything that has been typed. Well SpellBound - II wasn't compatible but was immediately hacked. I like Fasterfox's little timer, irregardless of whether it makes Firefox faster, hacked also.

It will always be #1 in our hearts!

I'd noticed that also, however, now it (v2.09.600) seems to work fine.

It just seems to be zooming anymore. I keep it clean by deleting the sandboxed sessions and with CCleaner, so it's not like it's caching my sites.

I hate tool bars, although I'm sure they are very useful.

I noticed on my notebook this morning that SpellBound was still functioning with Ff 3. Turns out my desktop only had v2. I prefer checking/correcting after finishing a message. Ff still underlines everything as you type. Get it here. Use the modded version, save it to your desktop and when ask what to open with choose Ff and it will install like any extension.

Ff 3 working fine here! I didn't lose InFormEnter, my most useful extension. Also retained Gmail Notifier, Image Zoom and OpenBook. Lost Auto Copy and SpellBound - II, which is a big loss since I preferred editing whole paragraphs. I installed in the MS SteadyState disk protection environment first to make sure I didn't lose any Bookmarks or settings. The only issues was the Mozilla servers must still be over loaded because it just wasn't downloading so I went to MajorGeeks and it took about five seconds. See no great advantage to this but it may be rendering pages slightly faster.

I'm sure the author can help!

Another point on this subject! I don't know if RAM defragers are different from optimizers (have never even tried one of them) but the numbers just don't back the theory that the defragers just move some of the process to virtual memory. I had a Subscription to Spy Sweeper and through work, Spyware Doctor. If I did a full scan with either one of those I would be left with less than 50% of my 1g of RAM. The RAM would never return all day. Then I discovered that a two minute memory scan with AVG Anti-Spyware would result in returning total RAM usage to only 20 some percent. I just enabled SD Starter Edition and scanned with it. After the scan I ended up with 46% of RAM in use and 40.1mb of virtual memory in use. I then ran a 38 second scan with RAM Def XT. After the scan I had only 27% of RAM in use and the page file in use actually went down to 39.9mb. Point is, this program didn't just move the processes to virtual memory. I suspect the MemInfo defrager and AVg do the same.

There is no refuting Mark's credentials, however, if you read many of the posts in that thread it becomes quite evident that, depending on what applications are running and how you are using the PC, Windows doesn't always do the perfect job. It is quite analogous to the "old" carburetor on vehicles. They were manufactured and tuned to work in an "average" environment. e.g. temp, humidity, elevation, etc. Also, this thread was started in relation to an application that uses Windows feature every 30 minutes (or as often as one likes), maximizing the efficiency of the Windows tool.

Strange! I have WD enabled on both the XP and Vista machines and that hasn't occurred.

Typo, I did mean minutes. I just installed this on my Vista notebook and it seems to really make a nice difference on it. I left it at 30 minutes and have the XP at every hour now.

So last year, even though I never seem to run into any malware, I renew my subscription to AVG Anti-Spware because of its memory scan returning "leaked" RAM. I didn't realize my MemInfo could do the same thing. I always have over one half of my 1gig but I'm a RAMaholic. So I discover RAM Def XT which does the same thing in about 40 seconds (it's definitely a keeper!). But this little gem you'll really love! Now every 30 seconds sounds a little much but you never even notice it or you can just adjust it yourself in scheduling. I made it every two hours.

Leery of what? PayPal is the safest way to do business on line. I use it all the time. My credit card number is stored but at one site. Unfortunately not all businesses accept it so you have to enter your card number!

Supposedly it will generate a Master Card debit number when purchasing from a site that doesn't accept PayPal. I installed it but kept a wary eye out for some fine print about a service charge but never did notice one. If this is truly free it's great. I hate doing business on the sites that require you create an account!

Nope, it's wired, W XP. PC is like four years old but have never had any issues except what I caused testing software. There were a few anti-malware updates early this morning but I'm sure that wasn't it. When I ended the browsing session prior to this mystery everything was normal. All I know is the reboot worked.

Thanks Humpty, very good to know to avoid the whole memory dump shutdown issue. Any theories on what disabled the mouse?

So my left and right mouse buttons suddenly died! The cursor moved and I forgot to try the middle scroll button. I hadn't used the PC for over an hour and then when I went to start a session it was dead. I used the tower to shutdown, hoping that I'd accidentally hit some key during the last session and that did work. What key, keys could I have used to shutdown its functionality or any other theories? Forgot to try the escape key by the way. Thank You!