How To Get Your Computer Infected - An Example

Just today I got an email that under guarantee would lead to a damaged computer if I would follow the link. I want to show a detail that way too few of my customers are aware of.
 

From the "name" of the sender that I have never heard of to the contents of the text everything just screams "SCAM, BEWARE, CAUTION". But who does not like the idea to get $50,000, somehow. If you would have any hope that it might just eventually be true here is the final giveaway.

Look closely at the picture, a screen shot of the very small window of the email program. When I took the screen shot the cursor was on the link "File-For-Grants, you can see the cursor arrow. And in the status bar you can see the translation of File-For-Grants, that is where your browser really would take you to when you click on that link..

Reading it from left to right:

1. Go to "transfer.go.com"
2. Then go to "log.go.com"
3. Then finally go to "http://ow.ly/976nw?u6i7"

The first two steps are just disguising what really is going on. Likely every screen that flickers by really fast shows a few advertisements and thus makes money for the crook. In the end effect we end up at "http://ow.ly/976nw?u6i7".
 
Ow.ly is a legitimate service to shorten URLs. Shortened URLs are often used to avoid very long URLs - and they are being used to disguise the real target of the URL.

Expanding the short URL "http://ow.ly/976nw?u6i7" gets me finally to "http://www.stimulusgrantapproval.com/", a web site that WOT immediately flags as dangerous and unreliable.

As much as we all would like $50,000, it sounds too good to be true - and you know what that is in reality.

Just a little bit of attention to the details can save us lots of headaches. But we have to pay attention to the details!

You don't see the status bar? Some incompetent dimwit must have turned it off, it does not "go away" by itself! In Thunderbird you turn it on in View, Toolbars, Status Bar.

Stay safe.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.  

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Current Threats to PC Home Computers

Computers and everything around them change at quite a rapid pace. Especially the Internet is ever changing and with it the threats are changing that we encounter. The crooks that want to use our computers to their own advantage are adapting faster to changes in computer technology and on the Internet than most users even become aware of the changed environment.

The changes in Operating systems from Windows XP to Windows 7 are so significant that some common viruses from 2002 through 2006 just could not survive in a Windows 7 environment. Naturally the crooks are very aware of that and they have adapted their software and their ways to get malicious programs running on your computer.

Although it would still get your computer infected nowadays you don’t have to go to “iffy” web sites anymore; you don’t need to download illegally copied music, movies or license keys for expensive games. Your computer can get badly infected without you even going to a danger zone.

Today one of the major avenues chosen by crooks are advertisements. One simple remedy is to follow this rule:

Do NOT click on or in any advertisement.

Especially if the ad promises a “free gift” or claims you have been chosen as a “winner”. Trust me: Nobody gives an Apple iPad 2 or a modern smartphone away for free!

If you think that web sites or services you use daily like Google, web based email (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, MSN mail and the like) or even Facebook ought to be “safe” then you better think again.

For example so called product recommendations that seem to come from a Facebook friend most likely are infected advertisements; they will nail your computer with malicious software. 

Sometimes that malicious stuff is so nasty that we would have to rebuild the whole system from scratch – which means you’d lose everything currently stored on your computer’s disk drive.

The art of writing malicious software is not as much technical skill to write a self-replicating virus program anymore as it has become the art of social engineering. By now you can buy “proven to work” virus code from the Internet, you just have to do the social engineering to get the victim to click or to watch the advertisement or to play that seemingly innocuous little video. Some examples of social engineering tricks are:

• Making a supposed headline sufficiently salacious to entice you to “click to read more”.
• Promising a “win” in some unnamed lottery.
• Promising coveted gadgets; currently an Apple iPad, Apple iPhone 4S or an Android smartphone do the trick.
• Promising something about “wardrobe malfunctions” or the like; sex sells, you know?
• Claiming a package could not be delivered and promising to show you the order or even the invoice for the contents of the package.
• Plenty of other tricks, too many to list here.

What happens when you inadvertently click on the wrong link or ad? Most likely your computer gets infected with a program from a wide selection of nasty pieces of malware. Some examples are:

•  Trojan Horse programs sitting secretly on your computer and enabling their creators to use your computer for their purposes.
• Scareware programs that claim to have detected dozens of viruses; if you fall for the scare
  -   you will be directly out of some money,
  -   you will have given your credit card information to some crook or
  -   you most likely will have “bought” a program that will be really bad and hard to remove. 
• Key Loggers that will record all your keystrokes, all login names, all passwords, all account numbers and so on.
• Bots (short for Robots), hidden programs that can do and be used for absolutely anything illegal or criminal. Bot activity has brought the FBI to quite a few houses of unsuspecting people.

It has become quite difficult to always stay clear of these dangers.

So what can we do?

1. Read this article on my blog and cover the basics.
2. Use Mozilla Firefox as your web browser; just by doing this you eliminate a large percentage of malicious programs and attacks.
3. If you use an email program use Mozilla Thunderbird instead of any Microsoft email program; by doing this you eliminate a large percentage of email borne risks and attacks.
4. Install the Adblock Plus extension in Firefox and Thunderbird. Correctly installed ABP will block all advertisements from known commercial advertisement servers!
5. Use a dependable ant virus program. Currently I strongly favor Microsoft Security Essentials. You can read about the “why” here, here, here and here.

Did I forget something important? Please leave a comment below, I will reply here as well.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.  

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Reality Catches Up With Symantec

It has happened! I will not lie to you, some part of me is chuckling gleefully. Symantec, the maker of the (in-)famous Norton products recommends to their customers:

“Symantec recommends disabling the product until Symantec releases a final set of software updates that resolve currently known vulnerability risks,” 

This is original text from an online statement released by Symantec about their computers having been hacked back in 2006! Emphasis added by me.

A few things are of interest to me:

1. They must have known about this for 6 (SIX!) years and kept it a secret.
    
2. They write "currently known ... risks".
   They knew about the risks all along but did not care to fix them!
    
3. They ask customers that have paid dearly for the purchase and are paying dearly for updating the software to stop using it altogether with no offer of any compensation at all.
   Pretty arrogant and overbearing if you ask me.

The short of it: I feel very relieved to now have it from the horse's mouth:

Stay far way from everything with a "Norton" label.

And applying my experiences with any other of the big name security suites (read about three examples) I now feel emboldened to say "Stay away from any of them". 

And if you want some more detail go to this FoxNews.com article.


As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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The Computer is NOT a Toy

Your computer is not a toy, even if your children or grandchildren disagree. Use it responsibly and enjoy it.

Antivirus software can help you prevent certain types of malicious software and viruses. But any antivirus is not the ultimate solution. 

If your system is slow or sluggish it does not necessarily have to be virus infected. Mostly some program is causing the slow down, very often big "security suites" are the culprit (see here). Or over time too many programs think they always have to run in the background or simply by now your hardware is outdated.

“Outdated hardware?” you ask? Oh yes; Windows and most important programs get updated all the time. That means they are being made more secure and/or get new functionality. This is possible only by growing larger; they contain much more code than they did originally. Your hardware is still what was sufficient in 2004, 2005 or 2006 but this not sufficient any longer.

We may not like to be told directly and honestly but most security problems with Windows computers are caused by.... the user. Keep your common sense hat firmly on at all times and think before you act.

Remember:" With great power comes great responsibility!" As a responsible user, you can enjoy the web without “pay through the nose” bloated and expensive security suites and without having to battle viruses or rogue programs.

Everything you need is available free of charge if you do your homework before going to that download site only because “there was a link”. Example at hand: Many well known and widely distributed computer publications (ZDNet, PC World are only examples!) will give you download links to Download.com. This site will always download and install a totally superfluous "Downloader" program that from then on will always run in the background on your computer.  

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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Computer 101 - The 2012 Edition

Disclosure:
Recently I found this article on a blog called The Consumerist. I liked the contents of this article very much but it clearly was written by a computer nerd for other computer nerds.

I took the liberty to re-write most of the article in a form and language that I hope is better suited for my customers. Here it is:  

1. Keep all your data backed up.
    
   Put your data on an external disk drive, upload it to a safe storage website, copy it to another computer or even on a CD or a DVD (most cumbersome!), somewhere, anywhere but please back up your data files!
   
   I am perfectly aware that many of my customers will have issues in setting everything up correctly but as usual I can help.
   
   Having your data on your computer only is NO GOOD, having data files in two places is a MUST. If one of these sets of data files fails you need to create another second storage location! This will save you $$ and a lot of aggravation.
   
   Manufacturer warranties do not cover your data files; you need to protect them yourself. Back up your documents, pictures, emails, email addresses (or contacts), bookmarks (or favorites), tax files, music, videos and ANY business information you may have.
   
   The only exception to my rule "free software for everything" covers data backup. You need a sufficiently large external disk drive and a piece of software costing $30 per computer.
   
   If set up correctly this program will keep all your data files automatically up to date on the external disk drive without you having to do anything except the initial set up. As usual I can help with that.
   
   
2.  Have a current recovery disc for each computer you have.
   
   This is your licensed copy of your OS. You no longer get operating system disks with a new computer; it’s all stored on the disk drive. It is specific to your computer's internals like processor, mother board, sound and graphics. It has the device drivers your computer needs to do its most basic tasks. Burn a recovery disk on to DVDs right away when you get your computer and put the DVD somewhere safe. It may easily take up to 3 hours to do.
   
   If you lose the recovery disk then you can order a new one from your manufacturer for between 15 and 50 dollars, depending on the brand. HP is usually cheaper, Sony is wickedly expensive. They take about 2 or 3 weeks to arrive; that is a looong wait if you need them NOW to replace a hard drive or to fix Windows.
   
   There is a significant difference between recovery disks and a repair disk that you need to be aware of. You can read about that here. You have to be aware of that significant difference. And you have to be aware of the fact that if you have to use these recovery disks your computer will be thrown back to exactly the state it was in at the very moment when the recovery disks where created! Here I am talking about recovery disks created with the standard Windows Vista and Windows 7 system tools, not disks created with manufacturer specific programs; the latter reset your computer to original factory new state. You don't want to go back there losing all updates and so on.
   
   If for whatever reason you can neither buy recovery disks from the manufacturer nor create your own disks then, as a last resort, you can purchase a full copy of Windows 7 for about $100.
   
   
3. One antivirus at a time, please.
   
   Two antivirus programs running concurrently is like pushing two fat pigs together through a dog door, neither can get through the door correctly and they block each other from functioning properly.
   
   Two antivirus or security programs can tear nasty holes in your operating system depending on which ones you are trying to combine (I have seen it!) or at least they will SLOW DOWN YOUR COMPUTER TO A CRAWL because two systems are trying to scan your every move as well as each others moves.
   
   More than one antivirus or security program running concurrently is usually LESS protection than one good one.
   
   Your new computer most likely came with a trial of some sort of “security” software pre-installed. All these pre-installed antivirus or security programs will cost money, every year! Remove this stuff because you don’t need to pay for a good antivirus program!
   
   Remove the “old” antivirus program before installing a new one; even if they are expired they will get in each other‘s way! And some of them don’t even uninstall correctly. I have uninstalled Norton, McAfee and other security programs and upon detailed inspection found some left over parts of these systems still sitting in and actually running on the computer. This inspection is not trivial at all; it takes very special programs and a lot of detailed know how to do it correctly.
   
   Install the free program Microsoft Security Essentials; you can read here how to do that correctly.
   
   
4. Do not install any tool bars. 
    Did you hear me?  Please DO NOT INSTALL ANY TOOL BARS!
   
   ALL toolbars are bloatware, they will slow down your internet connection and eventually even crash your web browser.
   
   You don't need any of them, no matter how well known the company is that wants to force the tool bar on your computer!
   
   Tool bars take up screen space and they will end up affecting performance and sometimes even security. 
   
   Please DO NOT INSTALL ANY TOOL BARS!
   
   
5. "Free" stuff can be expensive:
   
   Web sites that offer free games, movies, music (torrent sites!), pornography and even free social networking sites are riddled with viruses. Virus removal can be time and thus $$ consuming.
   
   Viruses are a software issue and are considered private data, they are not covered by any manufacturer warranty.
   
   Be safe and smart on the internet, use common sense and be vigilant.
   
   Keep your important software up to date; read more details about updating here.
   
   
6. Despite everything said in paragraph #5 above: Excellent free software is available for almost any functionality you can imagine and I can point you in the correct direction, I can show you where to find it.
    
7. Computers don’t like liquids.
   
   This includes water, coke, beer, soup, bodily fluids and excessive and/or aggressive cleaners.
   
   Don't spray screen cleaners directly on your screen, spray it on your lint free cleaning cloth and then wipe the screen. Even a mist of any liquid can cause damage.
   
   Computers also don’t like gravity or being punched. Throwing or punching a computer  will probably cause a lot more damage and not fix any issue, be it speed or erratic behavior.
   
   
8. No computer is immortal.
   
   Computer technology changes at an extremely fast rate. Average computer life spans are mere 2-3 years for laptops or closer to 4-5 years for desktop computers. This makes sense, because laptops undergo more stress from movement, impact and temperature changes. Many laptops are prone to overheating if you have them sitting “just” on your lap, on a table cloth(!) or on a pillow. NEVER EVER do that, always have your notebook computer on a solid, even surface like wooden tabletop, a counter top or a board.
   
   Your computer uses electricity that circulates through lots of electronic components that in turn can get really hot. Many portable computers eventually burn out. And if you have your data backed up, you'll be up and running on a new computer in no time.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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No Dell Or HP/Compaq Please - If You Ask Me

In the shortest way I can come up with here the reasons why I currently recommend to stay away from Dell and HP/Compaq computers.

At the time of writing about 5 or 6 months ago Hewlett Packard (HP) announced publicly that they want to sell their complete PC computer business. The price tag was quoted as US $ 11.2 Billion.

Not only their back then CEO lost his job over this publicity blunder, no, 6 or 8 weeks later, after a new CEO got hired, HP declared "No, we changed our mind, we want to keep our PC computer business".

In November/December 2004 IBM announced that they were selling their PC computer business to an until then almost unknown company in China named Lenovo. I remember very well the confusion that ensued. It took years until all was sorted out and we slowly learned to trust the new brand Lenovo.

I would accept a personal wager that HP is still talking about selling their PC business, but now behind closed doors. With the IBM/Lenovo story in mind I can not recommend to buy from HP, a manufacturer that may not be around anymore in maybe less than one year.


Dell is a slightly different story. Please read this article on my blog and follow the link I have there to the New York Times article about a class action lawsuit against Dell. After reading this you will understand why in good conscience I can not recommend to buy a computer from Dell, a company with a proven history of lying to their customers and of shirting well-grounded warranty claims as company policy.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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Danger! Most Wireless Routers Can Be Hacked

If you have a wireless router in your house then you should read on; if you don't (yet) have a wireless router in your home then you might want to read on anyway to be better prepared for the day when you will get one.

The Technology Reseller Channel CRN published a US-CERT warning concerning most wireless routers that I want to translate into hopefully easier to understand language.

By far most of the wireless routers sold in the last two to four years contain a feature called WPS. WPS is meant to make it easy to connect wireless devices to the router by using the WPS button on the router. Basically the router transmits the encryption code (often erroneously called wireless password) wirelessly to the device you want to connect.

The WPS protocol used for this process has a design flaw. This flaw allows a knowledgeable attacker to break into your wireless network.

Millions of wireless routers sold over the last few years have WPS capabilities built in and thus are opening your wireless network to potentially being hacked into. Generally WPS is by default turned ON.

What can you do about it? There is only one way to stay safe from this risk:

Turn WPS off!

The way to do this is different for every router model out there. You will have to delve into the documentation for your router and find out how to do it in your specific piece of hardware.

If you are not comfortable with doing this kind of technical setting then you can let me know, I will be happy too help.  

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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I Do Not Sell Any Hardware

All too often I receive emails from customers with a stement similar to the following:

 "I just purchased an XYZ computer from you....".

To keep the record straight I have to correct such a statement because it gives the incorrect impression that I sold the computer which is not the case.

I advised you to buy this computer and you bought it in your own name and with your credit card from ..... (fill in your store name).

Because your computer was according to your own words not working at all or possibly virus infected or too slow we physically may have used my computer for the purchasing process.

I have to insist on this clarification for reasons buried deeply in the tax codes of the United States and of the State of Wisconsin and the implications it would have for me if I would actually sell any hardware.

I do not sell computers or any (other) hardware.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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Email Client vs. Web Interface

If you use a regular email client program (I recommend and support Mozilla Thunderbird only) it helps to be aware of a few simple things about email.

Email client programs download the mails to the computer they run on and you maintain the emails and your filing system yourself. Once the emails are on your computer they should be gone from your ISP's server; IMHO this is an important security and privacy aspect.

I usually talk to my customers about the differences between an email client and an Internet based Web Interface and some of the consequences. "Normally" you should maintain your emails on your home computer, IMHO at least.The "Web Interface" is a complex web page that shows you the emails that are on the ISP's server in a web browser like Mozilla Firefox.

If you leave the emails on the ISP's server and access them only through a Web Interface you have no control whatsoever about who and what the ISP allows to scan and analyze your emails. Okay, I do not trust big companies' privacy promises, not at all; in the past there have been way too many bad surprises. 
If you travel often and want to see what new emails have arrived (and if the email client on the home computer is inactive) you typically go through a Web Interface, that is an Internet based way of accessing the emails that have not yet been downloaded to the computer at home. The three most common large Internet Service Providers in our area and the  URL to access their Web Interfaces are:

• Charter: https://web.charter.net/login/email_login.php
• Time-Warner (Roadrunner): https://webmail.wi.rr.com/
  
• ATT U-verse and DSL: https://login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2

If at home you use a client program like Thunderbird you can only send and receive emails when your computer connects to the Internet through your ISP. When you are connecting through other services like at a friend's house or at a public hot spot you have to use a Web Interface through your web browser.

Many people do not want to deal with the "complexity" I described above. For these people I recommend an account with Google Mail at gmail.com. Gmail can be set up to automatically load emails from almost any ISP.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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Worst Crapware Offenders - IMHO

If you are a customer of mine and if I have set-up your computer then you have an age old article about the gunk software on new PCs available; this article was first published in summer 2006. So far this old article was my only third party justification for offering my Set-Up job; finally here is more third party justification.

I really try hard not to rely on other people's writings for my blog posts. But sometimes I happen across something that comes right from my own heart. This is the case with Ed Bott's article on the ZDNet blog The Ed Bott Report. His articles  On consumer PCs, crapware is still a performance-sapping nuisance and  12 ways hardware makers screw up a perfectly good Windows PC tell the sad truth.  

Let's face it, there are many more than 12 ways how PC manufacturers mess up perfectly good computers! But alone the fact that someone of Ed Bott's stature and influence begins to write about this issue is not only new but almost sensational.

Another recent example of writing about the current "crapware" epidemic is in Michael Kassner's article Five Tips For Getting Rid Of Crapware on the TechRepublic web site. As interesting as this article is I do have to comment on his five tips because they are NOT AT ALL suitable for the non-technical home user. The author recommends in this sequence:

1. Buy a computer free of crapware
   Well said but too late when you unpack the new machine, you have it already.
2. Autoruns from Sysinternals
   IMHO a typical "tip" from a journalist lacking technical detail. Autoruns is an excellent utility in the hands of a knowledgeable technician to eliminate unwanted start-up programs but it is NOT a tool to remove, that is uninstall unwanted programs at all!
3. CCleaner
   An excellent tool, I use it almost daily. BUT you still need to know what to make of the long list of installed programs you are presented with. Not a tool for the average non-technical home user at all!
4. PC De-Crapifier
   This program costs money! It presents you with a list of third party (that is non Microsoft) programs and you have to make the decision if you want to remove it or not. Not a tool for the average non-technical home user at all!
5. Win-Patrol
   Certainly a good program but just a tiny bit of googling gives the same and often even more information. And still the final yes/no decision is with the poor non-technical home user who generally just does not have the know-how needed to make these choices correctly.

Yes, we do have a problem with all the crappy software that comes pre-installed on brand new, brand name computers.

A significant part of what I do every week is cleaning crapware from new computers as part of my Set-Up Job. From the experience with this I venture to give my own, very individual and clearly opinionated version of a list of the IMHO worst crapware offenders; the worst being right up front.

1. Samsung
2. Sony
3. Toshiba
4. HP / Compaq
5. Asus
6. Dell
7. Lenovo
8. Acer / Gateway / eMachines

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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About Libre Office

When I help any customer order a new computer I always have this or a shorter version of this conversation with them:

If the customer owns a paid retail versions of MS Office then this gets installed and the conversation is over.If they do not own MS Office Then I will explain to them that on the new computer will be a trial version of Microsoft Office installed.

That usually means MS Word, MS Excel and MS PowerPoint are available. This trial version will fully work only for 30 or 60 days depending on the computer manufacturer and the MS Office version.

After this initial one or two month(s) the customer will have to buy a license to obtain a product key; with that  product key they can activate MS Office for full functionality. This license costs an additional $100 to $150.-

There is an alternative office suite named Libre Office available (formerly called Open Office). This software suite does about 95% of what MS Office does and it is free, free as in no money ever. It is widely used in Europe and many third world countries.

Do you want me to leave MS Office on the machine or do you want me to install Libre Office (formerly Open Office) instead?

More than nine out of ten of my customers decide to go with Libre Office. 

If I do the set up of Libre Office correctly it will open, read and write MS Word, MS Excel and MS PowerPoint files. Generally I do not install the Libre Office drawing and database modules which are of no interest to my typical home users.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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Buying Computers at Best Buy

Many customers of mine ask me for advice what computer to buy. Often I have to send them to a Best Buy store simply because BB sometimes has rock bottom priced offers that can't be beat anywhere. 

Best Buy has perfected several techniques of power selling. As every big company does they see to their own bottom line first and customers are an unavoidable means to that end.

 

Here is some advice derived from my own years of experience at Best Buy stores and from stories customers told me. The following is not said to blackmail Best Buy, it is an attempt to help you to protect yourself. 

Their sales people are excellently trained to push additional "stuff" on you that you don't need. 

They use FUD to confuse you, especially when they realize that you don't know much about computers and/or are insecure.

Go there well prepared, best with a printout of the first page of the description of the computer from their own web site. Say "I want to buy THIS computer and nothing else, absolutely nothing else!".

  

Do NOT accept any additional "offers".

• You do NOT need any of the anti virus or security programs they offer.
• You do NOT need a worthless extended warranty.
• You do NOT want ANY extras.
• Be stubborn, buy the computer ONLY.
• If the sales person gets too obnoxious ask them what part of NO they don't understand.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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Slow Computer? Boot Your bleeping Security Suite!

In the last three days I had three customers who were complaining about their slow computers. Customer number one had an older but fairly well equipped Windows XP machine with paid AVG, number two a Vista computer with Kaspersky Security Suite (paid) and number three was running Windows Vista Basic on a computer with limited main memory and Trend Micro Security Suite (paid).

In all three cases the machines were between four and six years old, that is just on the border where I begin to evaluate the worth of investing money into an aging computer versus buying a new computer.

In all three cases the customers choose to have me try removing the installed "security suites" and replace them with Microsoft Security Essentials before they made their choice between fix old or buy new.

Number one was a no brainer; original words of the customer: "Wow; that box NEVER before worked that fast!". He still is using Windows XP and he is a happy camper.

Number two was trickier because his machine had over time caught about 340 pieces of malicious software, among others two very nasty Rootkit viruses, a couple of Trojan horse programs and it was missing half a ton of updates. The clean up and updating took some time, I removed Kaspersky and installed Microsoft Security Essentials and guess what, the customer said he'd happily pay me, give the computer to his daughter in college and asked me to advise him what to replace his computer with!

Number three is so happy they gave me an excellent tip in the form of home made dill pickles, yummy! Thank you Fred and Judy! They will keep using their computer until they can afford a new one. And I got an additional job from them, thanks for that too.

Why do I tell these stories? Because that's the reality out in the field of home computing, not what I witnessed last (Black) Friday in a local Best Buy store where almost every customer who talked to the Best Buy sales people about a computer got pestered to buy one of  Kaspersky's security suites.

All these by now massively complex programs in my opinion are not worth the money compared to Microsoft Security Essentials.

MSE "speaks" only understandable English,
MSE is absolutely unobtrusive,
MSE does not slow down your computer,
MSE does not block your computer while it is scanning,
MSE updates in the background when the computer is otherwise idle and on top of all
MSE is free, free as in no money!

Sounds like a no brainer to me.


As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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Webroot Proven To Be Inadequate

Finally it has happened! Webroot Antivirus and Webroot Spysweeper software is gone. How did that happen?

Webroot, the manufacturer himself says it is not good enough for you!

They, Webroot, launched a new system based on completely new, unproven technology. You can read details on the TechWorld blog. And it costs money, naturally.

If your computer still has Webroot's Antivirus and/or Spysweeper installed then quickly uninstall it and replace it with Microsoft Security Essentials. You can read here how to do that correctly.

• MSE is free.
• MSE speaks simple English language that everybody can understand.
• MSE allows you to work on your computer while it scans, even on weak older computers.
• MSE employs massively proven techniques. 

Many people are not aware that Microsoft has many years of experience with combating malicious software. Okay, they had a rocky start but we are so long past these initial problems.

With first beginnings in 1997 many of MS's server customers have relied on Microsoft Forefront and these experiences have finally led to Microsoft Security Essentials.

As far as I know no other antivirus system ever had all of these advantages on it's side. 

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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Browser Toolbars - More Than a Nuisance

The following applies generally to ALL tool bars, no matter how well known the name of the company is where the toolbar originates from. I chose the Yahoo! toolbar only because it is so pervasive and comes in many disguises.

Over and over again I find the nasty (at least!) Yahoo! Toolbar on customer's computers. When I ask the rhetorical question "Who installed that?" mostly I get sort of a blank stare and the reply "I have no idea".

And I trust that the customer really has no idea. But then, how did it happen? Two possibilities:

1st possibility:
 
You installed a new program or an update to a program you have been using for quite some time. These install processes usually ask a lot of tedious questions and we have gotten used to "clicking through", that is to quickly click on the button for the positive, confirming choice. We want to get done with this, don't we?

This "clicking though" is the culprit. Right in the middle of all these windows is one window that may look similar to this example:

As you can see the example is from an installation of PDF-Creator. And it asks us for permission to install the "pdfforge Toolbar". Only the text by the second preselected check box gives us a hint as to what toolbar this really is. "Set Yahoo! as my ..." gives it away, it's my friend the Yahoo! toolbar in one of it's many disguises!
 

Do you know a rat when you smell a rat?

This is a typical example of how we get tricked everywhere and all the time to do the wrong thing. We have "trained" ourselves to click through and the people out there know it and use it to our detriment - if we let them.

Take the time to really read and understand what these little windows say and act accordingly. The correct action here would be to uncheck the two check boxes by "I agree..." and "Set Yahoo!...". Simple enough one would think...

2nd possibility:

Just a few minutes ago I did some researching for a specific issue in the Thunderbird email program that many of my customers and I myself use. In a legitimate related article in the Thunderbird support materials was a link to Yahoo! Help. I followed that link and ended up with this (partial) window:

 
Do you really understand what Yahoo! offers here? We have to sort of translate the words "...Firefox for Yahoo!". Yahoo! does not have any real updates to Firefox; we get those only from Mozilla.

Yahoo! has a slightly modified version of Firefox that locks you into some Yahoo! services, especially their search engine. Once you have the Yahoo! version installed there is no way to get rid of the "Yahoo! Toolbar" and their "search enhancements"  besides re-installing Firefox from a clean installer.

Do you know a rat when you smell a rat? 

Here Yahoo! takes advantage of the fact that most people don't know enough about their computer and seemingly are afraid to ask before they click on stuff like this.

Why is all this important you ask?

 

Here you have it directly from the horses mouth:

Yahoo! Toolbar "Causes excessive CPU usage"

Ask.com Toolbar "May cause redirected searches, failed keyword searches and/or the "File not found" error..." 

If you want it more technical see Mozilla's own list of problematic extensions for more similar goodies.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Click here for a categorized Table Of Contents.

What To Update?

Update May 2019: Please read this article, it supersedes what follows here. 

Revised September 18th 2011 and October 3rd.

All to often I hear from customers remarks like “There are always these reminders to update this or that but I am afraid to do something wrong so I always say NO”. I do understand the basic impulse behind this reaction; I always ask “Why didn’t you ask me?”. And that is where we usually have to leave it because I am at their home to do a job.

There is an easy answer to the title question: “Every program you use”. But I realize that this answer raises for most of my customers even more questions; it appears that is not a correct answer.

Here is an updated attempt to put together a list of programs that IMHO should always be kept up-to-date. Please respond with as many suggestions, critical remarks and questions as possible right here in the blog by using the Comment feature. I hope this list will grow and become a good point of reference for the ubiquitous question “What should I Update?”. The bolded words are a list of what you should keep up to date.

Windows itself and all other programs from Microsoft need to be kept up-to-date all the time. My experience shows over and over that the standard Windows feature called “Automatic Update” is not really dependable. On computers I have set up you will find a desktop icon for Windows Update or Microsoft Update. Although the background color will be different on your computer they look like this:

     Windows XP              Vista/7

When Automatic Updates has worked it may show you a small icon in the tray area (bottom right corner of the screen).

          
Windows XP       Vista/7

When you rest your mouse cursor on one of these icons Windows will tell you for example that “Updates are ready for your computer. Click here to install them” or “Updates have been installed. Click here to restart”. Well, please do that; Windows is telling you that important security relevant changes have been made and you need to allow Windows to complete this process!

Any and all security programs like anti virus, adware- and spyware scanners and the like have to be kept up-to-date.

Your web browser, hopefully Firefox, has to be kept up-to-date. It should check for updates automatically but this sometimes just does not work. Firefox for example allows you in the Help menu in About Firefox to check for an eventual update like this:

 

Another important thing are Firefox add-ons (also called extensions), little programs that add functionality to the web browser like weather status, blocking of advertisements and color coding of dangerous web sites in Google search results. Currently I install three extensions: Adblock Plus (block advertisements from known commercial advertisement servers), Forecastfox (weather info) and Web Of Trust (warns of unreliable web sites in search results). Firefox may ask you to check for Updates for installed add-ons.

After you have done the check you may be told that there are updates available; allow these updates to be installed!

If it tells you that “No updates were found” just close the window.  

Another slightly more detailed representation of Firefox Add-ons on my blog is here.

Update 03/0/2016:
Java is a computer system independent programming language that used to be widely used on the Internet. It has so extensively been abused to distribute viruses that it hardly used any longer.

I do no longer install nor support Java. If for any reason need to have Java installed keep reading, all others please remove Java from your computer(s) and skip to Adobe....

All too often I find computers with terribly outdated Java installations; this is like playing Russian Roulette with a revolver that has five of six chambers loaded. Java mainly gets updated to fix security risks and there are many Java viruses out there that just wait for a computer with an older version of Java. 

The newer versions of Java have an Auto-Updater that should check at least once every month for updates.You find the most current version Java on Filehippo.com.

If you get a Java update you are NOT done yet, sorry. Newer versions of Java since about one or two years will normally remove older versions but they can do that only in a limited fashion. You have to check manually that there are no older versions left on your computer!

In Control Panel click on Programs and Features (in XP click on Add/Remove Programs). In the resulting list look for any Java entry with a version number lower than the highest, that is the most recent one. If you find older Java entries highlight them and click on Uninstall (or Remove). Here is what is current per Sept. 19, 2011, example from Windows 7:


Naturally this will change with future updates or releases.  

Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash and Adobe Shockwave are ubiquitous on the Internet and important to be kept up-to-date. Here is how you can check for updates yourself:

1. Adobe Reader: Help menu, Check for Updates will tell you...
2. The About Adobe Flash Player page has to be visited with every web browser that you use regularly.
3. Adobe Shockwave Player; when you see a version number in the graphics box then you have the most current version. If not then please update immediately!

Please see below the paragraph beginning with "For the technically inclined reader…".

If you use the Thunderbird email program it too needs to be kept up-to-date. In Thunderbird you can check for an eventual update in Help, About Thunderbird. You will see something like this:

 

For the technically inclined reader I recommend Secunia PSI, a free program that will tell you when ANY program you have installed needs to be updated. 

Here is the list of the most important things that have to be kept up to date:

1. Windows (better: all Microsoft software)
2. Security programs
3. ‏Firefox web browser 
4. Firefox add-ons
5. Adobe Reader
6. Adobe Flash
7. Adobe Shockwave
8. Thunderbird email client
9. Thunderbird add-ons

Please help to improve this list by making suggestions in comments.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Click here for a categorized Table Of Contents.

Danger - Wild Parsnip

Through a chain of emails from one concerned nurse to many others and so on finally to my wife I got a warning about Wild Parsnip, a non-native, invasive and poisonous plant that is appearing alarmingly fast and widespread now. I have seen lots of wild Parsnip along the roads here in the wider Hartford, WI area.

I want to pass this warning on to as many people as I possibly can. The original email read (some emphasis added and typos corrected):

I wanted to take a moment to write to you to tell you our county is now completely covered with wild parsnip plants and these plants are very dangerous. Unfortunately very few people know about them. I feel it is urgent that you be aware of these plants so that you may effectively treat your patients and also educate your community too.  
 
Wild Parsnip causes phytophotodermatitis to the skin.  When plant juices come in contact with the skin nothing happens but when this same skin is exposed to sunlight a rash with significant blistering can occur.  The skin discoloration and sun sensitivity from this plant can last months, even years.
 
Please familiarize yourself with this plant as it truly has taken over our county and the accompanying burns will most likely be something you will be seeing more and more of in your practice.

In the beginning paragraph I have linked to Wild Parsnip on Wikipedia. Please read the paragraph titled Dangers.

And here are examples of what Wild Parsnip looks like:

"Harmless" little plant...

... with nice leaves and ...

... many of these plants by the roadside can actually look quite nice!

But the rash and the blisters show the plant's ugly side!

I hope many of you see this and take action when you see the plant! Thank you.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Click here for a categorized Table Of Contents.
 

Dangerous Downloads - Even From Well-Known Sites

Why didn't I have the idea to write about that earlier?

For the longest time I don't use cnet's Download.com web site anymore. Why? Because they force-feed a "download manager" program to your computer whose sole purpose seems to be to offer additional gunk like toolbars, search helpers and so on. Okay, I understand that cnet needs to make money but that is just too much, for me at least.

If you follow this blog you have seen me referring to TechSupportAlert before; this web site is for me the source for finding information about free software and that's the reason that I am subscribed to their newsletter. This newsletter in turn lead me to a very interesting blog I had not heard of before. The currently newest post there is titled "Dangerous Downloads on Legitimate Websites & Search Engines".

Using cnet's download.com web site in his example the author describes in great detail how easily unsuspecting and uncritical users can be mislead to install an unwanted download manager and then to download exactly the wrong program.

The example is quite extensive but IMHO it's more than worth to really read the details.

What is described in "Dangerous Downloads on Legitimate Websites & Search Engines" is generally but in slightly different form more or less applicable to many, many so called "download" web sites out there. Common sense and diligence in reading, really reading these web pages is called for. We are never too old to learn, aren't we?

Or be consequent and heed all warnings from WOT (Web Of Trust); you did install WOT in the meantime, didn't you? If not please read the article on Siteadvisor being incompatible with Firefox 5 and up on this blog.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Click here for a categorized Table Of Contents.

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Virus Check Any File

Today a customer told me that she actually reads this blog and that she would like to see something about virus-checking any given file. Thank you Rose K. for reading this blog and for the suggestion.

I can think of many scenarios where you have a file, any kind of file, that you feel you better check for viruses before you "work" with it. And you may want something like a "majority vote" because just the other day you read in the newspaper that scary article saying that one anti virus program may not be enough to know "the truth".

As with increasingly many things around computers the Internet can help with a service that will allow you to upload any file up to a size of 20MB; this service then will submit your file to currently 40 (forty!) different anti-virus programs and give you the results.

This free service is called VirusTotal. Here is a partial screenshot of  an example output:

When you click on the Show All button the list gets much, much longer.

In the Result column on the far right you see what every anti-virus program says about the file. No entry here means that the AV program does not qualify the file as containing a virus.

Yes, above mentioned newspaper article is technically correct, one vote is not enough to really matter. But when only 5 of 40 results mark the file as virus infected you can with some degree of reliability assume that these five positive results may be so called "false positives". 

A word of warning: I can imagine that only a few AV programs mark a file as infected while the majority does not and the file actually contains a brand new virus that the majority of AV programs can not yet detect! Depending on the circumstances you may react super carefully rather than too trusting.

Again another good example that computer safety benefits from an open mind, common sense, a good measure of caution and careful consideration of all aspects of the given situation.

The only problem with common sense seems to be that it ain't that common..

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Click here for a categorized Table Of Contents.

Atlantis Resort - A Five Star Disappointment!

You find my experiences with the Atlantis Resort here.

Sorry for the additional click but this grew step by step; it is done now.

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Siteadvisor Incompatible With Firefox 5

Currently I get many questions about McAfee Siteadvisor not working in Firefox.

If you have updated to Firefox 5.0 nobody can help you but McAfee; their Siteadvisor is not compatible with the new version of Firefox anymore.

An excellent example how a big company, here McAfee, ruins an originally outstanding utility and makes it unusable.

An IMHO decent replacement would be Web Of Trust, WOT for short. You can check out WOT here. Please read the descriptions first!

If you want to install WOT please uninstall/remove Siteadvisor first. Here is how:

1. Open the Control Panel
2. In XP open Add/Remove Programs, in Vista or Win 7 open Programs and Features
3. Find and highlight McAfee Siteadisor
4. In XP click Remove, in Vista or Win 7 click Uninstall

Then you can install WOT from within Firefox.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Click here for a categorized Table Of Contents.

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Wireless Disconnecting - Windows 7 64-bit mostly

Several Windows 7 64-bit systems (laptop computers mainly) seem to loose their wireless network connection at varying and not specified times under varying circumstances.

Searching in Google and in Microsoft's support forum I found three different methods documented that seem to have done the trick for various people. I post these methods here in an attempt to give at least some help.

Method 1: Disable IEEE 802.1X authentication
To disable IEEE 802.1X authentication, follow these steps:

• Click Start, type ncpa.cpl, and then hit Enter.
• Right-click your wireless network connection and click Properties.
• Click the Wireless Networks tab.
• In Preferred networks, click your wireless network and click Properties.
• Click the Authentication tab, click to clear the Enable IEEE 802.1X authentication for this network check box, and then click OK two times.

Method 2: Remove and re-create the wireless network connection
To remove and re-create the wireless network connection, follow these steps:

• Click Start, type ncpa.cpl, and then hit Enter. 
• Right-click your wireless network connection and click Properties.
• Click the Wireless Networks tab.
• Under Preferred networks, click your wireless network and click Remove.
• Click View Wireless Networks.
• Under Network Tasks, click Refresh Network List.
• Under Choose a wireless network, click the wireless network to which you want to connect and click Connect.
  

Method 3 requires to work within your router.
If you are not used to do that - frankly, you better call me.

But for those of you that are not faint of heart: Here it is, written for a D-Link 655 router. If you have a different router the same things may be called VERY differently; be cautious!

• Un-check WMM (Wireless Multi Media)
• Un-check Short GI (Guard Interval) and
• Un-check Extra Wireless Protection.

Warning: These are methods that have helped other people with this problem to varying degrees. If you have a D-Link router I might actually try method #3 first.

Either way you apply any of these methods exclusively at your own risk. I did not have this problem and thus can not test any of the above.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Click here for a categorized Table Of Contents.

Set-Up Job

Edited March 24, 2018: Problems with Windows 10 "Feature Updates" (twice every year!)Edited March 9,   2016: Block Windows 10 from snooping and Picasa discontinued
 
Every brand name computer you buy in a store or on the internet brings with it three areas of concern: Gunk software, missing updates and costly and questionable "security" software. I'll address these three concerns separately and then offer my suggestion to deal with these concerns before they become a problem.

1. Gunk software: Brand name computers come with some (and sometimes a lot of) "gunk" software pre-installed. You'll find anything from trial versions of programs that will cost additional money to outright spyware and even back door programs.

It goes without saying that this gunk should be removed before you even connect the computer for the first time to the internet.

I even consider programs like Microsoft's Internet Explorer and MS's email programs and Microsoft Office trial versions to be "gunk". By virtue of the very technology used TO WRITE them (called ActiveX) they will enable a large percentage of malicious software to be executed on your computer. Just by using alternative programs that were built without ActiveX technology you avoid all this malicious ActiveX software automatically.

Microsoft's Office is by now always a trial version; it will cost you additionally about $100 to $150 depending on where you buy the product key that you will need to use MS Office for more than 60 days.

There is a commercial program being offered to do this removing of gunk software but the computer manufacturers regularly modify what they pre-install and the names of what they install. Thus a program attempting the clean-up will almost always be outdated and work only incompletely. Or it will offer you a list of installed non-Microsoft programs and ask for your decision on what to remove; and you bought the program because you don't know that in the first place!

2. Missing Updates: The brand name computer you buy was designed and originally configured months ago, sometimes many months ago. For good reasons software companies like Microsoft, Adobe and others regularly release security relevant updates. Microsoft used to do that up to Windows 7 on a monthly schedule; since Windows 8 MS updates more or less continually.

All these mandatory updates from when your computer model was designed until when you bought it are missing. That mostly is a lot to download and install. These downloads should be done in a safe environment to protect the machine from eventual hack attacks before all required updates are installed.
Edit March 2018: Microsoft has a new method to upgrade Windows 10 every six months. These upgrades are HUGE and can take many hours to download and run. IMHO it is imperative to supervise this process and to know what to do (or not to do) when problems arise.
There sheer size and the volume of work to install them is the main reason that I recommend to buy computers with SSD drives; with HDD drives these big updates just take too long!  

3. "Security" Software: All of the commonly preinstalled anti virus programs or "security systems" will in the future cost additional money. Some are considerable, clearly perceivable heavy workloads making your computer slow; see this article for real life experiences with security suites slowing down perfectly well working computers.

Some others are not always working correctly and/or proving their questionable quality by not
uninstalling correctly or quietly stopping to work altogether.

After seemingly error-free uninstalling of some security suites I have found that they left sometimes parts of their software still running. Due to the nature of what these programs have to do these left-over drivers and orphaned processes can wreak havoc.

This clearly calls for a knowledgeable human doing the uninstalling and checking for left-overs.

My Solution: I offer a set-up job for new computers; I even offer a fixed price if I can do it at my house because I can overlap some of the time with answering my emails and other activities.
This set-up job includes:

• De-gunking the computer (manually and completely removing unwanted, potentially risky programs and all kind of trial software)
• Updating the operating system and all other software in a safe environment.
• Installing and updating (or enabling) free security software (currently Microsoft Security Essentials on Win7, enabling Windows Defender on Windows 8.x and Windows 10)
• Edit March 2016: On Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 I install a free program that blocks Windows from reporting back to Microsoft what you do and how you do it (I call that spying!).
  Since about November 2015 Microsoft has begun to "enhance" Windows 7 and 8.1 with some of the reporting features of Windows 10. That is called progress...
• Installing Mozilla's Firefox web browser, my choice as alternate web browser including the best available advertisement blocker and a utility that warns you if search results would lead to known malicious web sites
• Installing Mozilla's Thunderbird email client if so desired including the best available advertisement blocker
• Installing Libre Office (Microsoft file compatible office software)
• Installing Google Earth
• Installing Picasa (photo management and editing program) if so desired;
  Edit March 2016: Only upon request; the Web Album Service was discontinued by Google;
  you can keep using Picasa to organize, edit a.s.o. locally stored pictures just as in the past; there will be no more program updates for Picasa (the current version is VERY stable!).
  
• Installing an easy to use screen shot program (so you can send me a picture of the pesky error message that is bugging you)
• Installing a remote control program that enables me to give you remote support  
• Replacing the always out-of date preinstalled version of Adobe Reader with a free, faster and safer alternative called PDF-XChange Viewer
• Installing a virtual PDF printer; it creates PDF files from anything you can print. You don't want to email a job application as a Word document that anybody could modify! 
• Establishing desktop icons leading directly to Documents, Downloads, Pictures and so on. 
• On Windows 8 and Windows 10 install a proven, small program that starts the computer directly into desktop mode and establishes a Start button and a Programs menu like we have been used to since Windows XP (that is since 2002)!

All above mentioned software is of excellent quality, officially FREE for home use and guaranteed to be free of advertisements and spyware.

All this can take many hours and will seriously confuse the normal "non geek" computer user.
If I can do the Set-Up job at my house I offer it for a flat fee! Should you be interested please send a personal email to ejheinze_at_gmail_dot_com; thank you.


As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Stay safe!

LibreOffice - What Is It - Installed Correctly

Once upon a time there was an office software suite called OpenOffice, worldwide free (as in no money!) and used in many European and third world countries. OpenOffice was an OSS system. The technical infrastructure (server computers, storage space a.s.o.) for this sizeable project was mainly supported by Sun Microsystems, a now defunct computer manufacturer. Then the software behemoth Oracle Corp. bought Sun and got OpenOffice as an Easter egg with the whole basket. They, Oracle, imposed some fees and apparently a whole lot of red tape and typical "big company" overhead which did not sit well with many of the major developers, that is the programmers who mostly as volunteers wrote the code and did all the nitty-gritty detail work.

Quote from another blog:

"Oracle's imposition of fees for some OpenOffice capabilities caused some of the venerable open source office suite's creators to head out on their own and create LibreOffice as a truly free OSS tool."

So the developers of OpenOffice spoke, parted from Oracle's realm and alas, we had LibreOffice.

Basically LibreOffice is almost exactly the same as OpenOffice, only better. Better because it can read files from Microsoft Works and Word Perfect and handle SVG graphics files.

There are two major differences:

1. OpenOffice came with an always outdated Java version and LibreOffice requires a Java environment already installed on the computer. If I have set up your computer that is covered. If I did not set up your computer you need to install the most current version of Java and remove all older versions.
2. OpenOffice came with Help files integrated in one huge download, LibreOffice comes in two files; you need both.

There are a few things you ought to know if you want to install LibreOffice.

1. Install or update to the latest version of Java (as of July 2011 version 6 update 26 is current).
2. Remove (un-install) all eventually still existing older versions of Java.
3. Remove (un-install) OpenOffice - if it was on your computer at all.
4. Download LibreOffice from this web page. As of end of July 2011 the current stable version id 3.4.2. You need two files:
   1. LibO_3.4.2_Win_x86_install_multi.exe, the LibreOffice installer program.
      Caution: This is a 214MB download!
   2. LibO_3.42_Win_x86_helppack_en-US.exe, the installer for the Help package.
   3. Above version numbers will be different for future versions!

Some important installation instructions (not meant to be comprehensive!):

Install LibreOffice itself by running the installer in file LibO_x.x.x_Win_x86_install_multi.exe.

For everything here not explicitly mentioned you can accept the default values/selections.

When you are being asked to select the type of installation please select Custom:

You will have to de-select the following features:
In Optional Components the Python-UNO Bridge:

In LibreOffice Program Modules de-select Draw, Base and Math; it should look like this:

Then select all three Microsoft Office modules:

Install the Help package by running the installer in file LibO_x.x.x_Win_x86_helppack_en-US.exe.

With these hints you should be able to install LibreOffice with the ability to open and write Microsoft Office Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. If you prefer to have me do the installation then please download both files that I mentioned above, I can do the rest remotely.

After the installation you will find two folders named "LibreOffice 3.x (random) Installation Files" and "LibreOffice 3.3 Help Pack (English) (random) Installation Files" on your desktop. Please delete these two folders.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

Click here for a categorized Table Of Contents.