DennisD

I'm not sure whether this applies only to Windows Firewall, which I'm using, or any firewall. Recently did a firewall test at HackerWatch. With the open ports scan, managed a full stealth rating. Did the same test 10 minutes ago with Skype active, but minimized, waiting for my son to come on line, something we do very regularly. HackerWatch port scan showed ports 80 and 443 as red. In other words, open to the world and awaiting connections. It appears that by default Skype uses port 13023 for incoming connections, but opens ports 80 and 443 as alternatives. I've stuck this screen shot in as it seems the easiest way to show where this checkbox is, and as you can see, unchecking this option gives full stealth again in HackerWatch portscan test. A lot of you guys who use Skype may already be aware of this, but if not, I'd check your prefs. Can any of you knowledgeable guys tell me if that is as bad a security risk as it appears?

Hey, I've got all the cavalry coming to the rescue. Excellent. Any URL, no connection. Will try disabling "SNC" That's a new one. Will give it a try. Okey Dokey, will do that as well. Thanks guys, will let you know.

Disabled Avast completely, and shut down Windows firewall. No joy. Same error message.

Started maybe a couple of months ago when quite a few people were having trouble accessing and moving around the forum with Firefox. Thought I'd give Opera another try for a while. Will log off now, and try your suggestion of disabling.

Although someone can't help bleeding on you, I understand exactly what you are saying. But when it comes to being spat on, that's one of the most disgusting, degrading things that can be done to a person. And with the added serious health risk, that act should carry a heavy punishment in itself, but I've no doubt that you have the same do-gooders over there as we have here, and probably everywhere. The senile judges who have led sheltered, priviledged lives, the social workers who don't want to punish people, but rescue them. The list goes on unfortunately. Do you know something, a few years ago there was a survey carried out in London by a TV news journalist. He discovered that there were 45 "ex offender" support and advice centres, and only 2 "victims of crime" support and advice centres. That just about sums up our crime and punishment system. Scotty, beam me up. If only.

Starting a new thread on this because it is definitely gonna be my last attempt at getting Opera to work with my broadband connection. This is just slightly doing my head in. When I first joined this forum, Opera was one of the first new programs I tried. No problems, just downloaded, installed and ran it. Since then, very little has changed. I have the same ISP, the same pc, the same ADSL USB modem, just about the same everything. The only thing that I have changed recently, is my antivirus and firewall, which is Avast Home Edition and Windows Firewall. But I'm sure I tried Opera before I changed these. The only other thing different is the version of Opera. But I have tried every version I can find on their home pages, with no joy. I've also placed Opera.exe in the firewall exceptions list. Here's a couple of screenshots of the message I get each time, and the Opera prefs screen. I've changed the home page address a few times to my usual homepage, the forum address etc. None of them make any difference. I do not have any type of proxy server enabled, as I have a direct connection to the internet and everything else works just fine, although I've tried checking and unchecking just about every box in prefs until I was dizzy. If any of you guys can solve this, I will put you on my Christmas card list for sure.

Lets all hope that you're never called on to use that training. And this might sound a bit clich?d, but man, look after yourself and stay safe. You and everyone else who pulls on the uniform.

The next logical step from that is cyber protection rackets. Pay us x amount a month to protect you from the malware we are spreading.

This is the second time I've posted this reply today, first one disappeared. Anyway, thanks for the update tip CeeCee, just done that from Avasts program update function which I've neglected to check for a while. Been using this for some time now, and like it a lot. Thanks again.

No, I actually meant this thread, which I've just found.

I've said this before, and I make no apologies for saying it again, the world is going completely mad. News Item. Unfortunately, this is not unique to the US of A, it just seems to happen there more often simply because of its size. I don't think there's a country that hasn't been scarred by this phenomenon. Why can't these people just simply blow their own brains out without taking innocent people with them. There's a scary trend nowadays of closing down mental hospitals, and letting the ex inmates live in the community, under the supervision of "experts". We live in an age where you can't remonstrate with a bad driver in case he attacks you or worse, you can't even look people in the eye in a pub or in the street because they may take that as a challenge and assault you or worse. Sorry to start such a depressing topic, but I often wonder what the world holds for our descendants.

Andavari, did you have a problem recently in posting a reply which didn't appear? Posted one half an hour ago just before I logged off, and it appeared to post OK. Just came back on, and the posted reply is gone. In case it's just me, the reply was here. Anyone else having this problem?

Yep, it looks cool, but I think I'd get bored with that fairly quickly, and can you imagine how your arms would ache!

Came across this tonight. Thunder Road. Seems like an unusual version.

I used to have a stack of shortcuts on my desktop, and the installation packages of everything new I'd ever tried sitting in my received files folder, just in case I ever needed them. Then I suddenly saw the light one day after a format/reinstall, and thought, what the hell do I need all this stuff for? Decided then to really trim down to the applications I use on a regular basis, and it's surprising how few of these you actually need. Everything else is now on dvds. After clearing all the clutter, and doing an occasional defrag, windows explorer has files and folders almost leaping onto the screen compared to before, and as already mentioned by Andavari, scanning is a great deal quicker. In fact, I've just done the same operation on my house. Cleared out my shed, loft space and every cupboard in the house, of stuff that we might use again, or we thought might come in useful. Some of the things I've kept for years in case they came in handy, could probably be bought for a couple of pounds new if I ever needed them. Slightly off topic there, but I bet I'm not alone in hoarding stuff like that.

Nice program that Matt. I've just downloaded it for a 15 day trial. Has quite a few good backup features. A couple of screen shots. I've already backed up all my drivers, which now takes the risk out of updating them. Also has a Restore feature for all backups. Here's a thought. I installed and ran this under Power Shadow, so when I shut down my pc tonight will these screenshots mysteriously disappear.

I take it that's Springsteen. If it is I'm sure I've got that somewhere.

Well, just in case anyones still interested in this topic, I've actually rediscovered, (after listening to some stuff I haven't listened to in a long time) what was once my favourite song of all time, and is once again. Mr. Bojangles. The definitive version is by Sammy Davis Jr. (IMHO), but this song has been covered by so many people. Compare Sammy Davis with Robbie Williams here: Niel Diamond and Dylan also did pretty good versions of this. The actual Mr Bojangles was this guy.

Thanks for that.

Humpty's solution did it. System Restore back to the 6th this month made no difference. So thank you my good man for the suggestion, and thank you Humpty for the solution.

You just beat me to it (again). I was gonna tell you that. Gonna simply try a system restore. Will let you know.

Thankyou squire, I'll find Humpty's post ok, and that reinstall sounds like a good idea as well. If the probs don't go away I'll stick a log for you to have a quick look at.

It says, "at least one of the firewalls installed on this computer is on". That could mean it's detecting more than one firewall, or it could simply be the fixed statement no matter how many firewalls there are. rridgely, I've been having one or two strange things happening since trying that firewall, such as it was still running with all its program files etc intact although I had tracked it and uninstalled it with Zsoft. I've had a few hangups while booting, including tonight, and last night I had a sudden instant switch off (without closing down) and a message after rebooting about a problem with live desktop. Scanned with Avast and Superantispyware, which came up clean, although that's no guarantee that everything is clean I know. If I posted a hijackthis log, would it show if any of this kerio firewall was still hanging around somewhere? That probably sounds daft, but it sounds daft that Zsoft told me the firewall had been uninstalled, when in fact it was still there completely intact.

Thanks Humpty, that gives me an idea where to look. I'm probably not the only one who's had this anomaly. (Anomaly ? I've been watching too much Star Trek)

Pre-installed on my pc. I thought everybody had one. Control Panel > Security Centre > That previous screen is the Norton Security Centre button.