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I can't get the empty loop site to download anything, and the older versions link there appears broken. I got the older versions from Filehippo and Majorgeeks. 1.8.7 and 1.8.9 are the ones I had to rename. edit: version 1.9.0 is available as a portable (zip) from Softpedia and AfterDawn. It downloads OK. Have never used it.

I'm still using unlocker ver. 1.8.9 on win xp and 1.9.2 on win 7. As mta said, it is a great software. It would be so much better if the author had not included those ebay and delta toolbar addons. I daresay those trigger so many antivirus warnings that they prevent many folks from using unlocker. As an experiment I just now downloaded and installed versions 1.8.7, 1.8.9 and 1.9.2 here on xp. In succession, not all at once. Found out these things: - must disable Avast to download and install them. I actually had to rename the exe files to download them. - do uncheck the "automatically check for updates" box. - don't use the express or standard install, use the custom instead. - 1.8.7 and 1.8.9 want to install an ebay shortcut or something but you can skip that, must uncheck the box. - 1.9.2 wants to install the Delta Toolbar but you can skip that, must uncheck all 3 boxes in the advanced install option. - unlocker is not easy to uninstall if you ever want to get rid of it. - both the ebay shortcut and the delta toolbar are a real pain to get rid of if they get past you when you are installing.

Yes, quite so. (Might be you posted that while I was editing.) Anyway, I've learned over several years that Avast and Outpost firewall (maybe others) do indeed send information their masters, but nothing has ever come back to haunt me . . . he says, as there is a loud knock at the door . So at any rate I need the protection and will put up with the "feedback" functions in order to get it. Others might disagree. The question posed by Eli is a good one. I think the answer is to just select protective softwares based on opinions you trust, then watch them to make sure they work.

Nope ... Facebook ... MMUUAAAaahaaahaahaaa. But in order to be aware of viruses or similar issues in real time you have to use something in real time.. One of the benefits of hanging around forums where the members are not completely whacko pretty knowledgeable is that you can learn from others experiences. What I've done to keep XP safe is adopt a layered approach. Here on xp the setup is this, listed in order of least disaster to worst. - Avast Antivirus + MBAM + Spyware Blaster to catch malware at the point of attack (hopefully). There are alternatives available. - Sandboxie, used to run programs in an environment isolated from the real OS. No good alternative that I know of. - Powershadow, a light virtualization software, it allows to just reboot if the problem gets past the antivirus and other realtime protections. There are alternatives like Returnil, Shadow Defender, others which I don't remember right now but other members will. - Acronis image backup in case all else fails. Alternatives are Image for Windows or Macrium, maybe others. - Last but not least, the factory reset disks.that came with the computer. Or the restore image from the OEM, or something similar. There is one type of infection I don't much understand, a compromise of the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). It isn't an issue here on this old machine, so I am not fully read up on it. But it is a baddie.

Welllll, there's a difference between paranoia and healthy caution. I have thought about that for a long time also. Agree w/ mta, there is no good alternative. There are ways to double check, like independent online virus scanners, system monitoring software, a good, configurable firewall, virtualization, imaging software, etc. Then there are Live CD's, which start fresh every time and will not retain malware. But yes, eventually "you have to trust something".

I am 99.99% sure xp will still download updates for a new installation. That is not 100% because I have not done it in a long time, but i have done it since support stopped. Might try it myself soon eventually if time permits. I bet Tasgandy would already know . . . ?? FYI: Two days ago I manually downloaded and ran the Malicious Software Removal Tool on this xp desktop, just to see it it would work. I had read where someone said it was no longer possible for xp, but it worked OK. Also, last year this xp machine began to have problems shutting down, removing USB drives, and starting Powershadow. To make a long story short, the problem stopped when I turned off windows update as trium described. There are 2 topics about it on this forum. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=42686&hl= and http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=44043&hl=

Same. I have spent literally days figuring out how to keep win 7 from becoming win 10. It does that every full moon, you know. I have this huge list of updates which must be hidden. It is just about complete now, and there are third party softwares that may ?? automate the process, so in the next week or so i may fire up the win 7 desktop, image it, and begin the update battle. I'm gettin too old for this.

Apparently so. This from 2015 says about 250 million users. https://redmondmag.com/articles/2015/04/08/windows-xp-usage.aspx This from 2016 says about 11% of current windows users. https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/04/11/millions-of-people-are-still-running-windows-xp/ But the microsoft push of win 10 is reduced the percentages of both win xp and win 7. The diminishing use of win 7 correlates very closely with the increasing use of win 10. http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201503-201603 A quick Startpage search shows tons of writeups, mostly in two camps. One camp says XP'ers are living on borrowed time, Luddites or dinosaurs with diminished IQ's; the other says that the first are flibbertigibbets, spreading FUD or stumping for microsoft. The predictions of catastrophic consequences have yet to materialize. I call XP "The Little OS That Could" Others might disagree.

spetho2001, if you have secure deletion set to more than one pass it takes longer Most say there is little to be gained from using more than one pass. Its in Options > Settings > Secure Deletion.

I had the same situation yesterday on a win 7 laptop. CCleaner ver 5.16.5551 was installed over top of an older version. First look at the Applications tab showed a blank panel. Second look a couple of minutes later was normal. First registry scan, nothing found. Second scan found many issues and fixed them. Scan was probably correct, the laptop had been used pretty hard, software-wise.

"ASRM, MBR, PBCAK, PICNIC" LOL.

Well, more on the topic. My only experience is with an old version of Acronis. It works very well, and fairly quickly, for win xp. But some of the installation options were are not intuitive. Example: I selected the option to use Acronis Startup & Recovery Manager which allows to boot straight into a recovery mode. Removing ASRM was difficult, I had to replace the MBR. Others had the same problem. May have been a software bug, or a PBCAK, but it was a pain in the neck.

Thanks to both edit: all 3 of you. Good news indeed. 12:49 for a full backup. Wow. I am one of those who is nervous about using imaging software, been putting it off for a long time.

Solid State Drive or Solid State Disk, has no spinning platters, saves data to solid state chips, sort of. Not sure why they still call it a disk, it isn't round and doesn't spin, but maybe that's just me. The conventional wisdom is that here is no need to erase free space, nor to use multiple passes when overwriting. Those operations seriously reduce the life of the disk. Many on here know more than I, maybe will chime in. A quick search will show you enough information to make you dizzy. Did me, at least.

Thanks, Corona. Nice links. Just an FYI, uBlock Origin blocks about 130 links on that site, but it is perfectly harmless to turn it off and view the camera feeds. Edit: I managed to save some of the feed from Hazelnut's link as an .mp4 file and play it back with VLC player. That makes very big files, one minute and 34 seconds is a 23 mb file. But they are good quality and play just fine.

What a way to find chicks on line! :lol:

Corona, could you post the links to Decorah & Decorah North? I had the one to Decorah but it is gone. Thanks.

Waaay cool.

Microsoft started giving win 10 away free about July 29th 2015. At this point in time win 10 has achieved a whopping 13.56% market share. See here: http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201502-201602 After 2 years of vigorous condemnation by microsoft and others, win xp has about 7% I can say for sure that win xp works better and faster that win 7 on the same new hardware. And by golly, its safe, too. It used to be that win xp required a bit more "involvement" by the user but that isn't true anymore. These days it requires a huge effort.. . . far more effort than it should be . . . to avoid being tricked into installing win 10 over top of win 7 or win 8. The point? I think microsoft is right now in the process of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Trust is like a balloon. Regardless of how strong it is, one puncture and it is never the same. I cannot now trust any initiative by microsoft. Please excuse the strong language, but the situation makes me angry. I am in discussions with all my clients about how to make the transition to Linux. They both seem to be in agreement.

Thanks, Augeas. Quite clear.

I thought you probably knew all that already, but maybe the OP didn't. Alas, now he never will since he isn't coming back. This topic has started me reading about the issue again. Now I remember why I quit. The headaches and eye tics are back. Still, a follow up question: Is it certain that "it overwrites the same amount of platter surface (or NAND cell) if you write a 0 or a 1."? Because if so, it seems that the only advantage to a multi-pass strategy would be that it "flips" the magnetic media back and forth more times. ... or ... Maybe the different characters flip different bits of each byte but still within the same physical space??

Got mine right on xp sp3, Firefox portable sandboxed. Had 90% security, disabled flash, went to 100%

I thought your question was completely harmless. I'll share the little bit I know about this data wiping business. It used to be thought that certain multi-pass wiping strategies did a better job of rearranging the magnetic medium, therefore a better job of overwriting the original data. I always assumed that multi-pass strategies were designed because either: A. the different characters used for each pass addressed different areas on the medium, or B. successive passes changed the same areas on the medium back & forth to more thoroughly overwrite it. To be sure, I didn't look very deeply into the issue, because the deeper I looked the dizzier I got. Such discussions go quickly into a morass of arcane knowledge. But to give a partial answer to your question, mta, one erasing software I know about uses different letters for each wiping pass. The procedure they call DoD 5200.28-std uses these letter combinations in this order: 35 CA 97 68 AC 53 random. CCleaner also has a 7 pass strategy but i don't know what it is. Someone apparently believes this 7 pass strategy has some advantage. I guess the theory is that more passes, when properly configured, erase the data better. The common wisdom now is that one pass is enough, and that the multipass procedures were designed for an obsolete type of HDD. Anyway, IT DOESN'T MATTER. If one doesn't destroy the hard drive completely, someone somewhere can find data on it. If it was on there, it's probably findable. There are others on the forum who know far more than I about this, and if I have said something wrong I hope they will correct me. Augeas, you out there?

I constantly see someone looking down at their phone, presumably texting, while driving on the highway. If one of them hits one of those walkers, nobody would even know what happened.

If you weren't serious about that self destructing part, I will come out from under the couch now. Not awfully worried about that selfie stick.