Some recent posts in other threads in alt.home.repair indicate that
there is some lack of awareness of the need for browser extensions and
applications to manage privacy.

Especially evident is that many people never change the default privacy
settings on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook leading them to believe
that these sites should be avoided. The reality is that the default
settings for just about every social media application are designed to
maximize revenue for the owner. But fixing this only takes a couple of
minutes. The site owners are counting on users being lazy and clueless
and they are thrilled that this describes most of their users! There are
also simple steps you can take to block tracking on all sites and to
prevent redirection to malware sites.

Here is what I do. If I have missed anything, or anyone has other
suggestions, please post them.

1. Install Adblock Plus: https://adblockplus.org/. This blocks most
ads but some ads are deeply embedded. For Android devices you have to
sideload it because Google's Play Store has banned it, see
https://adblockplus.org/en/android-install. For iOS devices see
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adblock-browser-for-idevices/id537774578?mt=8

2. Modify your Hosts file with the text file at
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt. This prevents browsers from
being able to navigate to spam and tracking sites. Many links in web
sites are not as they appear and rather than navigating directly to the
site that is shown they first go to a tracking site like Google Ad
Services. With a proper Hosts file you'll get a "Server Not Found"
message. The method for modifying the Hosts file is different for
Windows, OS-X, and Linux systems. See
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm for instructions.

3. Block tracking with Ghostery https://www.ghostery.com/en/ and
Disconnect https://disconnect.me/disconnect. For mobile devices use
Disconnect Mobile https://disconnect.me/mobile/disconnect-malvertising
also called "Disconnect malvertising. Google banned it from the Play
Store so it needs to be sideloaded. blocks malicious ads that track your
activities, blocks malware disguised as ads, and offers protection
against suspected malware sites.

4. Install Malwarebytes. The free version is fine, but the automated
periodic scanning of the paid version is nice.

5. Install Avast Free or Microsoft Security Essentials; avoid McAfee and
Norton at all costs.

6. If you use Facebook, install FB Purity, http://www.fbpurity.com/.
"F.B. (Fluff Busting) Purity is a Facebook customizing browser
extension. It alters your view of Facebook to show only relevant
information to you. It lets you remove the annoying and irrelevant
stories from your newsfeed such as game and application spam, ads and
sponsored stories. It also hides the boxes you don't want to see on each
side of the newsfeed."

7. Be extremely careful when installing any freeware to not accept the
default installation which will often try to install malware like the
Ask Toolbar and McAfee, and will try to change your search engine.

8. Ensure that Norton and McAfee are completely removed from your
system. Even after you uninstall it there can be bits and pieces that
remain. See
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/completely-remove-norton-mcafee-computer/

9. Carefully select privacy settings in social media sites like Facebook
and LinkedIn. The defaults are NOT why you want! Use the following guides:

a) Facebook:
http://www.sophos.com/en-us/security-news-trends/best-practices/facebook.aspx.
Remember to install FB Purity.

b) LinkedIn:

Privacy & Settings
------------------
€¢ Turn off Activity Broadcasts
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Manage Turn
on/off your activity broadcasts uncheck box Save changes

€¢ Specify who can see your Activity Feed. It should not be
"Everyone" it should be only "Your network or "Your connections."
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Manage
Select who can see your activity feed choose "Your connections" or
"Your network" Save changes

€¢ Turn off notifying others when you've looked at their profile.
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Manage
Select what others see when you've viewed their profile select
"Totally anonymous" Save changes

€¢ Select who can see your connections
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Manage
Select who can see your connections choose "Your connections" Save
changes (there's not much point on being on LinkedIn if you choose "Only
you"

€¢ Choose who can follow your updates
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Manage
Choose who can follow your updates choose "Your connections" Save
changes

€¢ Turn off cookie tracking
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Account
Manage Advertising Preferences Manage Uncheck Box Save changes


Communications
--------------
€¢ Turn off Partner e-mail
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Account
Communications Turn on/off partner InMail Uncheck Both Boxes Save
changes

€¢ Select the types of messages you're willing to receive
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Account
Communications Select the types of messages you're willing to receive
Make appropriate choices for you Save changes

€¢ Turn off invitations to participate in research.
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Account
Communications Turn on/off invitations to participate in research
Uncheck Box Save changes

€¢ Set push notification settings
Account & Settings Privacy & Settings Account
Communications Set push notification settings Make appropriate
choices for you Save changes

On 01/30/2015 10:42 AM, SMS wrote:
....

5. Install Avast Free or Microsoft Security Essentials; avoid McAfee and
Norton at all costs.
....

Avast works but it's awfully naggy about pushing their for-pay products.
I've about reached limits of my patience but haven't taken the time to
do anything about it yet...

--

On 1/30/2015 1:12 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:42:41 -0800, SMS
wrote:


5. Install Avast Free or Microsoft Security Essentials; avoid McAfee and
Norton at all costs.

What's the problem with norton? I agree mcaffe sucks.


I have Norton but it usually only stops viruses.

adbloc on Firefox browser keeps a lot of the trash out.

On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:22:27 -0500, Frank
wrote:

adbloc on Firefox browser keeps a lot of the trash out.

....also see NoScript

https://noscript.net/

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzBqnLgOzwM

On 1/30/2015 3:05 PM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:22:27 -0500, Frank
wrote:

adbloc on Firefox browser keeps a lot of the trash out.

...also see NoScript

https://noscript.net/

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzBqnLgOzwM


Looks interesting.
All I have is Adblock Plus which keeps out most of the crap and I don't
have to interact with it.

"SMS" wrote in message
...
Hello. I am SMS, and I'm a fully gay man who likes to go AC/DC.
I want to be your friend.

"Oren" wrote in message
...
I ****ed his mother.

On 1/30/2015 1:44 PM, dpb wrote:
Avast works but it's awfully naggy about pushing their for-pay products.
I've about reached limits of my patience but haven't taken the time to
do anything about it yet...


I went to control panel and removed AVG tune
up 2015, kept nagging me for money. C cleaner
does much same.

They just nag me for updates. Sigh.

-
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 1/30/2015 12:24 PM, Frank wrote:
On 1/30/2015 3:05 PM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:22:27 -0500, Frank
wrote:

adbloc on Firefox browser keeps a lot of the trash out.

...also see NoScript

https://noscript.net/

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzBqnLgOzwM


Looks interesting.
All I have is Adblock Plus which keeps out most of the crap and I don't
have to interact with it.

I think the "ScriptSafe" Chrome extension does the same thing as
NoScript on Firefox
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scriptsafe/oiigbmnaadbkfbmpbfijlflahbdbdgdf?hl=en.

The ScriptSafe author also recommends Ghostery, Disconnect,
DoNotTrackMe, and Adblock Plus. I haven't used DoNotTrackMe.

Anyone's computer that I manage, i.e. kids, spouse, relatives, I install
Ghostery, Adblock Plus, Disconnect, FB Purity, and Malware Bytes.
Microsoft Security Essentials is really adequate for virus protection. I
also always do a full uninstall of McAfee and Norton.

Here is some of what's wrong with Norton:
http://www.7tutorials.com/security-everyone-reviewing-norton-internet-security-2014

You don't say what "accounts and settings is. It
looks like settings for a cellphone. given what you
said about AV I'd assumed you were talking about
Windows.

A couple of thoughts:

* I'd agree about avoiding anything from Symantec.
It's all bloated junk. Avira causes too many false
positives. I've installed Avast for friends, as the lesser
of the evils. Personally I don't use AV and would never
use Malwarebytes. It's not that I don't think people
should use them. It's just that they take a lot of
resources and don't work very well. The whole idea is
outdated. But for people who don't know how to protect
from malware, AV is better than nothing.

* Cookies: A lot of sites won't work without cookies,
but they don't have to be a privacy problem. In Firefox
one can block 3rd-party cookies and set it to delete
all cookies when FF is closed.

* LinkedIn, Facebook: No one who cares about privacy
at all could possibly use LinkedIn or Facebook or GMail
or Chrome or anything else from Google. That's the simple
fact of the matter. You can't live your life online, hosted
by sleazy advertising companies, and then expect to protect
your privacy.
Also, LinkedIn is especially sleazy with spam. They trick
members into sharing their address books. A number of times
I've got spam from them sayying that someone wants me to
join LinkedIn, yet that someone knew nothing about it.

On 1/30/2015 7:20 PM, Mayayana wrote:
You don't say what "accounts and settings is. It
looks like settings for a cellphone. given what you
said about AV I'd assumed you were talking about
Windows.

A couple of thoughts:

* I'd agree about avoiding anything from Symantec.
It's all bloated junk. Avira causes too many false
positives. I've installed Avast for friends, as the lesser
of the evils. Personally I don't use AV and would never
use Malwarebytes. It's not that I don't think people
should use them. It's just that they take a lot of
resources and don't work very well. The whole idea is
outdated. But for people who don't know how to protect
from malware, AV is better than nothing.

* Cookies: A lot of sites won't work without cookies,
but they don't have to be a privacy problem. In Firefox
one can block 3rd-party cookies and set it to delete
all cookies when FF is closed.

* LinkedIn, Facebook: No one who cares about privacy
at all could possibly use LinkedIn or Facebook or GMail
or Chrome or anything else from Google. That's the simple
fact of the matter.

They only compromise privacy as much as users allow them to. The default
settings are awful and need to be changed but they know that few users
will take the time to do so. Tracking needs to be disabled and
advertising needs to be blocked. It's not all that different than
putting yourself on the Do Not Call list, filtering out the problem
posters and tea-baggers on alt.home.repair and other Usenet groups,
having an unlisted phone number, and opting out of direct mail
advertising. Yes it requires a small amount of effort, but there are
benefits to sites like LinkedIn as well.

| * LinkedIn, Facebook: No one who cares about privacy
| at all could possibly use LinkedIn or Facebook or GMail
| or Chrome or anything else from Google. That's the simple
| fact of the matter.
|
| They only compromise privacy as much as users allow them to. The default
| settings are awful and need to be changed but they know that few users
| will take the time to do so. Tracking needs to be disabled and
| advertising needs to be blocked. It's not all that different than
| putting yourself on the Do Not Call list, filtering out the problem
| posters and tea-baggers on alt.home.repair and other Usenet groups,
| having an unlisted phone number, and opting out of direct mail
| advertising. Yes it requires a small amount of effort, but there are
| benefits to sites like LinkedIn as well.
|

Putting yourself on the Do Not Call list does not
involve first publishing details of your private life.
With LinkedIn you're voluntarily posting your resume.
With Facebook you're allowing an advertising company
to host much of your social life. I'm continually
astonished that people go along with that. But it's
not entirely mysterious. Online ad companies have
used two very successful strategies:

1) Bring on the sleaze very slowly. (When Facebook
first came out it was presented as just a free, personal
bulletin board. Though "Zuck" himself famously said
something to the effect that people were idiots for
signing up. And that was back in his Harvard days.
Google, likewise, started as an honest company that
seemed almost heroic in the face of sleazy Microsoft.
They made plenty of money running an honest business
with contextual ads and no spying.... That was then.)

2) Do everything possible to support peoples' laziness.
Most people *want* to not know about the sleaze
because they like the service. It's a don't-ask-don't-
tell approach. As Herbert Marcuse famously described
much of what goes on in American culture, there's a
"toilet assumption". If you can't see it, it's not there.

Many people want to use these services. That's up
to them. If you want to believe you can also maintain
privacy that's up to you. But when you start telling people
they can maintain privacy just by setting Zuck's ever-
changing privacy settings you're misleading not only
yourself but also others.

First, most people simply can't
manage to adjust settings like that. It's not that they're
stupid. The settings just tend to be complex, deliberately
obfuscated and require some study to understand. Computers
in general also require a kind of linear thinking that many
people are uncomfortable with.

Second, it's nearly impossible to even know what you're
dealing with. Did you know that Facebook has buttons on
most major websites, and that those buttons are set in
invisible iframes? An iframe is an HTML tag. The gist of it
is that the Facebook button you see on, say, nyt.com is
actually a webpage that you are tricked into visiting. That
allows Facebook to run script, set 1st-party cookies, and
track your image loading on almost every site you visit. If
you're also a Facebook member they'll have no trouble
connecting that data to you, so that they know almost
everything you do online. They're already working on that
as part of their advertising business -- to sell you out to
advertisers on a far more broad scale than just in terms
of what you actually post to Facebook itself. They want
to track patterns between the ads they show you and
what you buy, so that they can then claim to have
evidence that their ads work.... justifying high ad rates.

How do you deal with that? Did you know about iframes?
Did you know Facebook uses them? Do you block all frames
in webpages? If you do then many sites won't work. If you
don't then how can you stop their tracking? The only hope
would be to put facebook in your HOSTS file. But you can't
do that and still post your vacation pictures for "everyone
and his brother" to look at.

Facebook buttons in iframes is just one small example of
an increasingly ingenious and dishonest trend toward spying
on you constantly, selling you out to both business and
gov't. The strategy employs some very obscure tactics:
Iframes, supercookies, Flash cookies, unique browser ID
derived from the accept header that the browser sends to
websites.... That's assuming you already block the worst
problems: script and cookies. But you clearly don't because
if you did you wouldn't be able to use Facebook.

What I'm trying to say is that you don't know how much
you don't know. Yet you think you're protecting your privacy
by having made "a small amount of effort". Most people
simply won't make the effort you've made. They'll shoot
the messenger, teasing you about tin foil hats. Anyone who
does make the effort will be misled by your instructions
into thinking that their privacy can be assured given a
few minutes of effort. I can at least understand the motives
of people who are lazy and don't want to know how bad
it all is. But you're lying to yourself more than they are,
thinking you're protecting privacy while you willingly have
an advertising company host your social life!

I have a privacy tips page I make available for people
who are interested. But even that is just a start. It's a
big topic:

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/privacytips.php5

In ending my little diatribe, allow me to leave you with
a rather chilling quote from that page. This is something
I saw quoted from Sheryl Sandberg, the CEO of Facebook.
She said that Facebook "enables brands to find their voices… and
to have genuine, personal relationships with their customers" ...
"to make marketing truly social".

She's defining spyware-based corporate advertising as
a warm and fuzzy service that makes social connections.
In other words, Pepsi and Ford are your good friends, and
Sheryl is such a dear that she's going to help you connect
with each other, for free!
These people are poorly socialized, amoral individuals. If
they were just crooks the whole thing would be easier. It's
far more insidious than that. They like to think they're doing
good while they grab money with both hands.

On 1/31/2015 9:59 AM, Mayayana wrote:
She's defining spyware-based corporate advertising as
a warm and fuzzy service that makes social connections.
In other words, Pepsi and Ford are your good friends, and
Sheryl is such a dear that she's going to help you connect
with each other, for free!
These people are poorly socialized, amoral individuals. If
they were just crooks the whole thing would be easier. It's
far more insidious than that. They like to think they're doing
good while they grab money with both hands.



At least Pepsi and Ford don't threaten to send
police and troopers with guns, to lock me in
jail if I fail to pay my taxes^h^h^h^h^h Pepsi
money that someone else decided how much I should
send.


-
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 1/31/2015 6:59 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| * LinkedIn, Facebook: No one who cares about privacy
| at all could possibly use LinkedIn or Facebook or GMail
| or Chrome or anything else from Google. That's the simple
| fact of the matter.
|
| They only compromise privacy as much as users allow them to. The default
| settings are awful and need to be changed but they know that few users
| will take the time to do so. Tracking needs to be disabled and
| advertising needs to be blocked. It's not all that different than
| putting yourself on the Do Not Call list, filtering out the problem
| posters and tea-baggers on alt.home.repair and other Usenet groups,
| having an unlisted phone number, and opting out of direct mail
| advertising. Yes it requires a small amount of effort, but there are
| benefits to sites like LinkedIn as well.
|

Putting yourself on the Do Not Call list does not
involve first publishing details of your private life.
With LinkedIn you're voluntarily posting your resume.
With Facebook you're allowing an advertising company
to host much of your social life. I'm continually
astonished that people go along with that. But it's
not entirely mysterious. Online ad companies have
used two very successful strategies:

On Facebook, you're only sharing as much of your life as you want to
share. You don't have to give your real birthday or real life history
and you probably should not do so just because of the risk of identity
theft.

Facebook has proven to be invaluable as a broadcast tool for school
organizations and you can have closed groups which are open by
invitation only. I.e. my son's marching band does most of their
communications via Facebook including posting videos of competitions,
notices of practices and rehearsals, etc. To do that with e-mail would
be a real pain in the butt.

| Facebook has proven to be invaluable as a broadcast tool for school
| organizations and you can have closed groups which are open by
| invitation only. I.e. my son's marching band does most of their
| communications via Facebook including posting videos of competitions,
| notices of practices and rehearsals, etc. To do that with e-mail would
| be a real pain in the butt.
|

They could have a website. They could talk to each other.
Facebook, in that case, is being used because the school
faculty are just too lazy to set up a website. There's no
excuse for setting up children with an advertising company.
If they had a website the kids could also learn a bit about
doing webpages. I'm not denying that Facebook can be useful.
I'm saying it's sleazy and fundamentally disempowering; not
a good example to set for kids.

It wasn't so long ago that people were playing with having
their own websites on space offered by their ISPs. Now,
just a few years later, most people think of the Internet
as a "consumer" service. Just as kids are growing up in
malls instead of in neighbors' back yards or in the town square,
they're also growing up in a commercial version of the Internet
that doesn't belong to them. You seem to be technically
sophisticated. Why not help the kids set up their own website?
They can learn HTML, how to manage a server, digital
graphics.... and it can be whatever they want, with no
corporate spying.

I have a friend who's a grade school teacher and is
being pressured to start a Twitter account, in order to
announce "stuff" daily to kids and parents, so that the
parents can feel involved. The lack of both imagination
and integrity in such a directive is pitiful.

On Sat, 31 Jan 2015 17:52:42 -0800, SMS
wrote:

On Facebook, you're only sharing as much of your life as you want to
share. You don't have to give your real birthday or real life history
and you probably should not do so just because of the risk of identity
theft.

Facebook has proven to be invaluable as a broadcast tool for school
organizations and you can have closed groups which are open by
invitation only. I.e. my son's marching band does most of their
communications via Facebook including posting videos of competitions,
notices of practices and rehearsals, etc. To do that with e-mail would
be a real pain in the butt.

I dont agree. Before facebook, email lists were common. All that band
would need to do is create an Addressbook for all band members, and send
out a notice to all of them at once. JPG omages can easily be sent to
the email list also. While I suppose videos can also be sent by email,
It's probably easier to just post them to a common website, which almost
every ISP have for free. Making a simple website with nothing but the
band's name and a few lines of text, and a place to post videos is
probably easier than setting up a facebook acct. (and a lot safer).

By the way, since Facebook has a link on damn near every website these
days, you dont need all sorts of software to block them. Windows has a
file called "HOSTS". I have facebook blocked and I never see their crap
on websites, I just see a box that says "cannot connect to facebook".
Since facebook uses around 25 different links to spam the internet, I
have about 25 entries in my HOSTS file, just for them, and have more for
Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social network sites, and also blocks for
many dangerous sites and advertising sites such as "doubleclick".

I'm assuming Windows 8.xx still has a HOSTS file.... My newest OS is
XP. The hosts file was used in Window 98 and up (maybe Win95 too).

If I had kids in school, I'd be really ****ed if they made my kid use
facebook, espacially when I have it blocked.

On 1/30/2015 11:42 AM, SMS wrote:

5. Install Avast Free or Microsoft Security Essentials; avoid McAfee and
Norton at all costs.

MSE is the BASELINE for other antivirus software!

Norton is one of the best antivirus programs on the market. McAfee isn't
as good as Norton (IMO), but it is still very good.

Some people get Norton or McAfee for free with their ISP. I would use
one of those IF you can get it for free.

If not, I would go with Avast, Avira, AVG, Panda, Comodo, 360 Total
Security.....take your pick. Panda is very good, especially for older
computers.

On 1/30/2015 1:12 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:42:41 -0800, SMS
wrote:


5. Install Avast Free or Microsoft Security Essentials; avoid McAfee and
Norton at all costs.

What's the problem with norton?

Nothing

On 1/30/2015 10:20 PM, Mayayana wrote:

A couple of thoughts:

* I'd agree about avoiding anything from Symantec.
It's all bloated junk.

Ummmm, no, it's not.

On 2/1/2015 12:09 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2015 17:52:42 -0800, SMS
wrote:

On Facebook, you're only sharing as much of your life as you want to
share. You don't have to give your real birthday or real life history
and you probably should not do so just because of the risk of identity
theft.

Facebook has proven to be invaluable as a broadcast tool for school
organizations and you can have closed groups which are open by
invitation only. I.e. my son's marching band does most of their
communications via Facebook including posting videos of competitions,
notices of practices and rehearsals, etc. To do that with e-mail would
be a real pain in the butt.

I dont agree. Before facebook, email lists were common. All that band
would need to do is create an Addressbook for all band members, and send
out a notice to all of them at once. JPG omages can easily be sent to
the email list also. While I suppose videos can also be sent by email,
It's probably easier to just post them to a common website, which almost
every ISP have for free. Making a simple website with nothing but the
band's name and a few lines of text, and a place to post videos is
probably easier than setting up a facebook acct. (and a lot safer).


I don't agree with you. FB is a LOT easier than what you just wrote.

And you can also add/invite businesses/companies to a major event on FB.

| I don't agree with you. FB is a LOT easier than what you just wrote.
|

That's the same response SMS has: "But Facebook
is a lot easier." In many ways it probably is. So what?
Is your life only about easy?
This thread started with talking about ways to protect
privacy. This is a perfect example of how scourges
like Facebook get going. We all want privacy and
security and blah, blah, blah, but.... you mean I'll
have to sit up and make a little effort? OK. Never mind.
I guess this spying and ads isn't really so bad.

| * I'd agree about avoiding anything from Symantec.
| It's all bloated junk.
|
| Ummmm, no, it's not.
|

You've just posted that to three people without
any explanation for your opinion. "Is not!" is not
a post. It's an outburst.

Norton is from Symantec. Symantec first bought
of Peter Norton's system utilities. They started out
as a good product, but gradually got badly bloated.
That's my opinion, but I did use the product for
several years in different versions.

Symantec bought Clean Sweep from Quarterdeck. The
QD product could back up nearly any program into a
single file to be moved to another computer. Symantec
gutted that functionality and added Clean Sweep to
their System Works as an essentially useless, extra
fluff utility.

Symantec bought the AtGuard firewall, which was the
first software I ever bought and is still the best firewall
I ever used. It cost $30 at the time, in 1999. Symantec
added 700+- default exceptions for software to go in
and out. The result was a useless firewall that nevertheless
appeared to work smoothly because one never had to
understand it or adjust it. (It just let nearly all software
through, so there was no muss or fuss. Symantec then
sold that mess for $70, double the AtGuard price, calling
it Norton Internet Security.
That's their typical strategy: Buy a good program, gut it,
wrap it in a pretty, cutting edge, techno-kitsch graphical
interface, then market it heavily and sell it for a bundle.

Symantec bought Drive Image from Powerquest. It
was a good disk imaging program that fit onto a floppy.
By the time Symantec was through with it, Drive Image
was a bloated, useless backup program based on .Net.
(Software reviews for Symantec's DI at the time were
as bad as my description. .Net is similar to Java. The
absurdity of designing a low-level disk utility to run in
Java or .Net -- bloated, high-level languages designed
for sandboxed web services and thus designed to prevent
access to the kind of low-level operations a disk utility
performs -- well, I don't know what to say. Their action
was inexplicable.)

I owned the latter 3 programs before Symantec got
their hands on them. Those programs were so badly
ruined that I had to wonder if Symantec might be making
a back room deal with Microsoft. (Moving software,
stopping corporate spyware and online ads, and making
disk images for OS backup are all things that MS would
prefer not to encourage. They're all things that potentially
reduce "consumer" spending and/or corporate earnings.)

I used Norton AV for many years, but eventually found
that it just required too much resources. (In any case,
the whole idea of AV is out-of-date and of little value.
Years ago there were thousands of viruses and new
definitions came out monthly. These days there are millions
of known viruses. New definitions come out in terms of
hours, not months. And AV software is comparing all of
the files you touch to those millions of unique byte strings.
Meanwhile, many of the attacks that happen are not yet
known malware.)

If you look around online you'll also find that there's a
cottage industry built around removing Norton software.
The only product of theirs that I did think was quite good
was their "speed disk" defragger.

So, those are my reasons for saying Norton is bloated
junk. If you're going to claim "Is not!" then I don't think it's
unreasonable to expect that you'd also have some
reason for that opinion that you can explain.

On Sun, 1 Feb 2015 09:59:40 -0500, "Mayayana"
wrote:

Symantec bought Drive Image from Powerquest. It
was a good disk imaging program that fit onto a floppy.
By the time Symantec was through with it, Drive Image
was a bloated, useless backup program based on .Net.
(Software reviews for Symantec's DI at the time were
as bad as my description. .Net is similar to Java. The
absurdity of designing a low-level disk utility to run in
Java or .Net -- bloated, high-level languages designed
for sandboxed web services and thus designed to prevent
access to the kind of low-level operations a disk utility
performs -- well, I don't know what to say. Their action
was inexplicable.)

You forgot to mention one of my favorite programs. "Partition Magic",
also made by Powerquest. Symantec bought that and destroyed it. It's
now part of one of their costly packages. I dont know which one, nor do
I care. I too dont use anything from Symantec either. Fortunately my
registered Partition Magic still works fine on XP, as well as Win98
Win2000 and probably WinME. I think ity also worked on Win95. But I
dont know if it works on Viata, Win7, or Win8???? (Since I only use XP
and still, Win98 too).

Actually, I believe Powerquest went out of business after Symentec
bought their stuff.

On 2/1/2015 6:59 AM, Mayayana wrote:

snip

If you look around online you'll also find that there's a
cottage industry built around removing Norton software.

Sometimes their applications are as difficult to remove as the viruses
and malware they claim to be preventing.

With improvements by Microsoft in Windows, including MSE, the bigger
issue for users is preventing tracking, suppressing ads, and managing
privacy settings on social media. Fortunately there's also a cottage
industry in all of those, much to the dismay of companies like Google
and Facebook. Look for apps that Google has banned from the Play Store
because they could affect ad revenue; they must be afraid that they have
the potential of becoming popular.

When I use someone else's computer I am shocked at how bad it is because
of their lack of knowledge of how to suppress ads, prevent tracking, and
install other vital browser add-ons. It's not because they're stupid,
it's because they just don't know about that sort of thing.

I really hate reading Usenet with Google Groups because it's more of
pain to do filtering. alt.home.repair has its share of problem posters
but it's actually much better than some other groups. There are several
newsgroup readers that make filtering them out very easy. It's a little
work at first but there's a big payoff in readability of groups.

On Sun, 1 Feb 2015 09:26:56 -0500, "Mayayana"
wrote:

| I don't agree with you. FB is a LOT easier than what you just wrote.
|

That's the same response SMS has: "But Facebook
is a lot easier." In many ways it probably is. So what?
Is your life only about easy?
This thread started with talking about ways to protect
privacy. This is a perfect example of how scourges
like Facebook get going. We all want privacy and
security and blah, blah, blah, but.... you mean I'll
have to sit up and make a little effort? OK. Never mind.
I guess this spying and ads isn't really so bad.


Facebook is easy to open an account. But once the account is opened,
it's a major pain adjust the settings, which are what is needed to
eliminate much of the spying and "open doors" that allow FB to
manipulate people's accounts and track what they do. Of course thay
make that tough, because they know mist people will just leave the
"doors open" and FB can then do whatever they please.

I said in another post that I closed my FB account several years ago,
and that was after less than a month of opening it. What I did not say,
is that I actually do have a current FB account. But it's listed to one
of my pets. I only open it from an old computer that I was no longer
using. It has Win98, and Firefox 3.x (3.x is the last version of FF
that will work on Win98. There is nothing on that computer except Win98
and Firefox. Plus I have some clipart stored on there. FB can access
that computer all they want, because they wont find any personal info.
The only reason I haev that account is because there are some local rock
bands and a few other businesses that I like to get their schedule, and
they dont have websites, only FB. And to get on their FB site requires
an account. I have never posted anything on that FB page. I just
opened it under the pets name, made up an adddress and faked the
birthdate. I do not have any "FB friends" I probably use it 3 times a
year at most. It's so boring I doubt FB would have any interest in it.
And if they do, I dont care.

| You forgot to mention one of my favorite programs. "Partition Magic",
| also made by Powerquest. Symantec bought that and destroyed it. It's
| now part of one of their costly packages. I dont know which one, nor do
| I care. I too dont use anything from Symantec either. Fortunately my
| registered Partition Magic still works fine on XP, as well as Win98
| Win2000 and probably WinME. I think ity also worked on Win95. But I
| dont know if it works on Viata, Win7, or Win8???? (Since I only use XP
| and still, Win98 too).
|

I didn't know they'd also redone PM. I also had
that one. Powerquest was sleazy about that. They
carefully divided the functionality between two
different, overpriced programs, so that neither
was quite fully functional by itself. (They even
claimed the software was licensed to only one hard
disk. $50 for a hard disk and $70 for the utility to
partition it!)

When I moved to XP I did some research and found
BootIt. (I've also used multi-booting for many years.)
I've been very happy with that, and it's been updated
to handle the differences in Vista+, while still fitting
on a floppy -- though I boot it from a CD. Unfortunately,
Vista/7 is a bloated mess. An XP image fits on a CD,
and that's with most or all of my software installed.
The smallest Win7 image I've been able to make
requires 2 DVDs.

On 2/1/2015 9:59 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| * I'd agree about avoiding anything from Symantec.
| It's all bloated junk.
|
| Ummmm, no, it's not.
|

You've just posted that to three people without
any explanation for your opinion. "Is not!" is not
a post. It's an outburst.

It's self-explanatory. Norton is NOT "bloated junk". Every person that
thinks that hasn't used Norton in the past 2 or 3 years.

Now, go write another "book".

On 2/1/2015 9:26 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| I don't agree with you. FB is a LOT easier than what you just wrote.
|

That's the same response SMS has: "But Facebook
is a lot easier." In many ways it probably is. So what?
Is your life only about easy?
This thread started with talking about ways to protect
privacy. This is a perfect example of how scourges
like Facebook get going. We all want privacy and
security and blah, blah, blah, but.... you mean I'll
have to sit up and make a little effort? OK. Never mind.
I guess this spying and ads isn't really so bad.



Well you just do whatever keeps you safe and private. Oh, and don't use
Google. lol

On 2/1/2015 8:03 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 1 Feb 2015 09:26:56 -0500, "Mayayana"
wrote:

| I don't agree with you. FB is a LOT easier than what you just wrote.
|

That's the same response SMS has: "But Facebook
is a lot easier." In many ways it probably is. So what?
Is your life only about easy?
This thread started with talking about ways to protect
privacy. This is a perfect example of how scourges
like Facebook get going. We all want privacy and
security and blah, blah, blah, but.... you mean I'll
have to sit up and make a little effort? OK. Never mind.
I guess this spying and ads isn't really so bad.


Facebook is easy to open an account. But once the account is opened,
it's a major pain adjust the settings, which are what is needed to
eliminate much of the spying and "open doors" that allow FB to
manipulate people's accounts and track what they do.

It's actually quite easy to adjust the settings. Numerous articles
explain exactly how to do it. Browser add-ons like Ghostery block things
like "Facebook Connect." But few people take the time to do it, which of
course is what Facebook counts on. Ditto for LinkedIn.

"Ron"
wrote in message On 1/30/2015 11:42 AM, SMS
wrote:

5. Install Avast Free or Microsoft Security
Essentials; avoid McAfee and
Norton at all costs.

MSE is the BASELINE for other antivirus
software!

Norton is one of the best antivirus programs on
the market. McAfee isn't as good as Norton
(IMO), but it is still very good.

Some people get Norton or McAfee for free with
their ISP. I would use one of those IF you can
get it for free.

If not, I would go with Avast, Avira, AVG,
Panda, Comodo, 360 Total Security.....take your
pick. Panda is very good, especially for older
computers.


Anyone have an opinion on Vipre?

On 2/1/2015 12:26 PM, Phil Kangas wrote:
"Ron"
wrote in message On 1/30/2015 11:42 AM, SMS
wrote:

5. Install Avast Free or Microsoft Security
Essentials; avoid McAfee and
Norton at all costs.

MSE is the BASELINE for other antivirus
software!

Norton is one of the best antivirus programs on
the market. McAfee isn't as good as Norton
(IMO), but it is still very good.

Some people get Norton or McAfee for free with
their ISP. I would use one of those IF you can
get it for free.

If not, I would go with Avast, Avira, AVG,
Panda, Comodo, 360 Total Security.....take your
pick. Panda is very good, especially for older
computers.


Anyone have an opinion on Vipre?


http://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/...ows/windows-8/
http://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/...ows/windows-7/

Doesn't rate very well.

On 02/01/2015 10:03 AM, wrote:

[snip]

I only open it from an old computer that I was no longer
using. It has Win98, and Firefox 3.x (3.x is the last version of FF
that will work on Win98.

[snip]

I have such an old computer. It is running ME, which is similar to 98. I
have gotten Firefox 9.0.1 to run on it, using
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/ . I then downloaded Firefox
from http://www.oldapps.com/firefox.php?o...=7113?download

Firefox adds some features like SVG graphics and fullscreen support
(although you have to enable the second).

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us

"Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted."

| You've just posted that to three people without
| any explanation for your opinion. "Is not!" is not
| a post. It's an outburst.
|
| It's self-explanatory.

This is starting to sound like a discussion with
a Jehovah's Witness: "We're going to Heaven,
and you're not, and that's that. How do we know?
It's obvious."

On 2/1/2015 1:23 PM, Mayayana wrote:
| You've just posted that to three people without
| any explanation for your opinion. "Is not!" is not
| a post. It's an outburst.
|
| It's self-explanatory.

This is starting to sound like a discussion with
a Jehovah's Witness: "We're going to Heaven,
and you're not, and that's that. How do we know?
It's obvious."



Have a nice day. And don't forget to update Win XP...oh, wait.

On 2/1/2015 8:03 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| You forgot to mention one of my favorite programs. "Partition Magic",
| also made by Powerquest. Symantec bought that and destroyed it. It's
| now part of one of their costly packages. I dont know which one, nor do
| I care. I too dont use anything from Symantec either. Fortunately my
| registered Partition Magic still works fine on XP, as well as Win98
| Win2000 and probably WinME. I think ity also worked on Win95. But I
| dont know if it works on Viata, Win7, or Win8???? (Since I only use XP
| and still, Win98 too).
|

I didn't know they'd also redone PM. I also had
that one. Powerquest was sleazy about that. They
carefully divided the functionality between two
different, overpriced programs, so that neither
was quite fully functional by itself. (They even
claimed the software was licensed to only one hard
disk. $50 for a hard disk and $70 for the utility to
partition it!)

http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/ is a good replacement for
Partition Magic. The free version is sufficient.

On 2/1/2015 6:59 AM, Mayayana wrote:

If you look around online you'll also find that there's a
cottage industry built around removing Norton software.
The only product of theirs that I did think was quite good
was their "speed disk" defragger.

So, those are my reasons for saying Norton is bloated
junk. If you're going to claim "Is not!" then I don't think it's
unreasonable to expect that you'd also have some
reason for that opinion that you can explain.

The first thing I look for when someone is having performance problems
with their computer is to see if Norton products are present. If they
are present, or remnants of them are present, they get removed.

What I find really amusing is that some stores now offer to remove
bloatware like Norton and McAfee, for a fee, on new computers. What a
business! Symantec and Intel pay computer makers to install Norton and
McAfee and then retailers want customers to pay to have them removed!

I recall doing benchmarking for a new tablet computer being designed by
Compaq that was using the processor from the company I worked for. I was
getting much better scores than Compaq was getting in their labs. But I
was installing Windows then running the benchmark. They were installing
their corporate Windows image which included Norton. There was a
significant difference in performance, not just a couple of percent.

On 1/31/2015 9:09 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2015 17:52:42 -0800, SMS
wrote:

On Facebook, you're only sharing as much of your life as you want to
share. You don't have to give your real birthday or real life history
and you probably should not do so just because of the risk of identity
theft.

Facebook has proven to be invaluable as a broadcast tool for school
organizations and you can have closed groups which are open by
invitation only. I.e. my son's marching band does most of their
communications via Facebook including posting videos of competitions,
notices of practices and rehearsals, etc. To do that with e-mail would
be a real pain in the butt.

I dont agree. Before facebook, email lists were common. All that band
would need to do is create an Addressbook for all band members, and send
out a notice to all of them at once.

You don't understand.

First of all, e-mails tend to be ignored because people get so many
e-mails. Unless you set up e-mail filters to sort them and depend on
people to include the organization name in the subject line so they can
be sorted.

Second, it makes a lot more sense to have a third party host images and
videos rather than e-mailing them around.

If I had kids in school, I'd be really ****ed if they made my kid use
facebook, espacially when I have it blocked.

Fortunately, the schools here have more enlightened parents, but I am in
the heart of Silicon Valley. And it's not just the students that join
the Facebook groups, it's the parents as well. We also need to know
what's going on, and we like watching the videos of the performances.
Having ONE central place to get all the information is very useful.

On Sun, 01 Feb 2015 09:13:33 -0800, SMS
wrote:

Browser add-ons like Ghostery block things
like "Facebook Connect."

For giggles I installed Ghostery FF add-on this morning out of
curiosity. I'm impressed. Opt-in and allow the purple bubble that
shows what trackers were blocked from tracking you.

https://www.ghostery.com/en/home

On 2/1/2015 1:21 PM, Oren wrote:
On Sun, 01 Feb 2015 09:13:33 -0800, SMS
wrote:

Browser add-ons like Ghostery block things
like "Facebook Connect."

For giggles I installed Ghostery FF add-on this morning out of
curiosity. I'm impressed. Opt-in and allow the purple bubble that
shows what trackers were blocked from tracking you.

https://www.ghostery.com/en/home

It's amazing just how many different trackers one web site can have!

On 1/30/2015 7:20 PM, Mayayana wrote:
You don't say what "accounts and settings is. It
looks like settings for a cellphone. given what you
said about AV I'd assumed you were talking about
Windows.

A couple of thoughts:

* I'd agree about avoiding anything from Symantec.
It's all bloated junk. Avira causes too many false
positives. I've installed Avast for friends, as the lesser
of the evils. Personally I don't use AV and would never
use Malwarebytes. It's not that I don't think people
should use them. It's just that they take a lot of
resources and don't work very well. The whole idea is
outdated. But for people who don't know how to protect
from malware, AV is better than nothing.

A great many users fall into the trap of renewing their Norton or McAfee
"protection" every year and then get very defensive when it's pointed
out that equivalent, or better, protection is easily available for lower
cost, or free. McAfee actually scores pretty well in independent tests.
The independent test labs no longer test Symantec because there is no
longer a standalone Norton Anti-Virus program.

See: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0%2c2817%2c2372364%2c00.asp and
http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/avc_sum_201412_en.pdf


I recall having to get my late mother off of Norton. She had renewed it
and Symantec was not recognizing the renewal ever though she would call
them and read them whatever confirmation they had sent. She asked me to
go over there to talk to them, since at the time I could see their
headquarters from my back yard (they have since moved). I explained to
her that no one there would be able to do anything.

Malwarebytes seems to use very few resources except when it's doing an
actual scan (which in the paid version you can schedule).