How do you folks put up with windows? Windows 7 safer? Pheh...

[Synthaholic]

Just Avast alone has done the job for us. I had both on the computer for awhile, but Avast was catching it all and so I uninstalled Malwarebytes.

I'm thinking of uninstalling Google Chrome though. I can't see that it does any better job than other search engines and I am suspecting it is doing some things I don't want done once I allowed Avast to give it free rein.

Have you ever looked at your Process tab in Windows Task Manager (CTRL+Shift+ESC) while Chrome is running? Whew!!!!

So I don't know what that means, but you agree I should get rid of Chrome?

Not necessarily. I was just pointing out what a resource hog it is. If you have a fast processor and a lot of RAM it shouldn't affect you.

Hit the control/shift/escape keys at the same time to bring up your Windows Task Manager, then go to the Process tab. If Chrome is running you will see multiple entries. One for Chrome, and the rest of the Chrome entries are for each add-on/extension that you have installed. They add up to a lot of memory and resources consumed.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Have you ever looked at your Process tab in Windows Task Manager (CTRL+Shift+ESC) while Chrome is running? Whew!!!!

So I don't know what that means, but you agree I should get rid of Chrome?

Not necessarily. I was just pointing out what a resource hog it is. If you have a fast processor and a lot of RAM it shouldn't affect you.

Hit the control/shift/escape keys at the same time to bring up your Windows Task Manager, then go to the Process tab. If Chrome is running you will see multiple entries. One for Chrome, and the rest of the Chrome entries are for each add-on/extension that you have installed. They add up to a lot of memory and resources consumed.

Safari uses the least amount overall (stressed and unstressed combined)
IE uses the least unstressed...but ranks No 2 as the highest resource hog when stressed (multiple tabs, applications within the browser etc.)

 

[bobcollum]

"many a reinstall"....
Yep...smooth as butter...just re-install all the time and no problem!

Probably the 2nd biggest issue with Windows - it works right out of the box. But just give it some time...

It never ceases to amaze me what people have been conditioned to expect with a computer. Would someone say "smooth as butter" about their car if they had to rebuild the engine every couple years?

That's just not a really good analogy. I don't think of reinstalling windows as anything to worry about, back up your stuff and go and it's done in an hour or two tops, but again, since I've had Win7 well over a year ago, I've been problem free. Why do you keep questioning my own take on the condition of my computer?



I wasn't accusing you of anything when I asked "what sites do you people go to?". It was tongue and cheek, or a bad attempt at it. Sorry if that's how you took it.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Probably the 2nd biggest issue with Windows - it works right out of the box. But just give it some time...

It never ceases to amaze me what people have been conditioned to expect with a computer. Would someone say "smooth as butter" about their car if they had to rebuild the engine every couple years?

That's just not a really good analogy. I don't think of reinstalling windows as anything to worry about, back up your stuff and go and it's done in an hour or two tops, but again, since I've had Win7 well over a year ago, I've been problem free. Why do you keep questioning my own take on the condition of my computer?



I wasn't accusing you of anything when I asked "what sites do you people go to?". It was tongue and cheek, or a bad attempt at it. Sorry if that's how you took it.

Ah heck...no skin loss here. I wasn't intentionally confrontational either..all part and parcel of communicating via a keyboard...you can't get full context.
I just found it funny that you were saying "everything is cool" at the same time saying you have re-installed a lot...not cool.
In Linux, a re-install is unheard of for the reason of fixing a problem. Just something you would never do, or have to do.

 

[bobcollum]

It never ceases to amaze me what people have been conditioned to expect with a computer. Would someone say "smooth as butter" about their car if they had to rebuild the engine every couple years?

That's just not a really good analogy. I don't think of reinstalling windows as anything to worry about, back up your stuff and go and it's done in an hour or two tops, but again, since I've had Win7 well over a year ago, I've been problem free. Why do you keep questioning my own take on the condition of my computer?



I wasn't accusing you of anything when I asked "what sites do you people go to?". It was tongue and cheek, or a bad attempt at it. Sorry if that's how you took it.

Ah heck...no skin loss here. I wasn't intentionally confrontational either..all part and parcel of communicating via a keyboard...you can't get full context.
I just found it funny that you were saying "everything is cool" at the same time saying you have re-installed a lot...not cool.
In Linux, a re-install is unheard of for the reason of fixing a problem. Just something you would never do, or have to do.

It's all about the Win7, back in the XP days reinstalls were commonplace, but my experience with 7 has been very good. It's not perfect but it's the best OS they've got by a mile.

 

[Synthaholic]

So I don't know what that means, but you agree I should get rid of Chrome?

Not necessarily. I was just pointing out what a resource hog it is. If you have a fast processor and a lot of RAM it shouldn't affect you.

Hit the control/shift/escape keys at the same time to bring up your Windows Task Manager, then go to the Process tab. If Chrome is running you will see multiple entries. One for Chrome, and the rest of the Chrome entries are for each add-on/extension that you have installed. They add up to a lot of memory and resources consumed.

Safari uses the least amount overall (stressed and unstressed combined)
IE uses the least unstressed...but ranks No 2 as the highest resource hog when stressed (multiple tabs, applications within the browser etc.)

Do you have a link for that? Not questioning it, just want to look at the data.

I'm usually using Firefox or Opera, but I launch Chrome whenever I use Google's services (YouTube, GMail, Google Calendar) so that I am only signed in to Google in one browser. I never use IE, but I am a big fan of SlimBrowser (a better IE), and have never even seen Safari except on my iPod.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Not necessarily. I was just pointing out what a resource hog it is. If you have a fast processor and a lot of RAM it shouldn't affect you.

Hit the control/shift/escape keys at the same time to bring up your Windows Task Manager, then go to the Process tab. If Chrome is running you will see multiple entries. One for Chrome, and the rest of the Chrome entries are for each add-on/extension that you have installed. They add up to a lot of memory and resources consumed.

Safari uses the least amount overall (stressed and unstressed combined)
IE uses the least unstressed...but ranks No 2 as the highest resource hog when stressed (multiple tabs, applications within the browser etc.)

Do you have a link for that? Not questioning it, just want to look at the data.

I'm usually using Firefox or Opera, but I launch Chrome whenever I use Google's services (YouTube, GMail, Google Calendar) so that I am only signed in to Google in one browser. I never use IE, but I am a big fan of SlimBrowser (a better IE), and have never even seen Safari except on my iPod.

Here you go...took me awhile to find it, I was wrong...IE is the worst when under a load.
Memory Usage Efficiency Benchmarks : Web Browser Grand Prix VIII: Chrome 16, Firefox 9, And Mac OS X

 

[Ringel05]

That's what they made Avast, Malwarebytes and Firefox/Google add ons/extensions for........ so the unwashed masses can surf and download in relative safety........
Of course you knew that, right? You protected her new computer for her, right?

Just finished reading this Lifehacker article:

Stop Paying for Windows Security; Microsoft's Security Tools Are Good Enough

Knowledge is good!

It's gonna take a hell of a lot more than their word to make me trust any M$ protection software anytime soon.

 

[Ringel05]

That's what they made Avast, Malwarebytes and Firefox/Google add ons/extensions for........ so the unwashed masses can surf and download in relative safety........
Of course you knew that, right? You protected her new computer for her, right?

Obviously...the first thing I did was uninstall McCafee and install avast and spybot. I am more than a little surprised that neither of these stopped the program. I went to the avast forums and whalaaa...complaints from others that avast doesn't catch this apparently well known spyware.
The point is that in just 3 days the damn OS already has malware. It's not like it is a teenagers machine. I looked at her history (which is how I figured out where it came from of course) - macys, macys, JC Penney, macy's, American Eagle, macy's...and oh...what's this?..."Windows-7-themes.com"...dang it....
It is pretty bad that an average person, who is clueless about anything tech-wise, who doesn't surf porn, doesn't download games...doesn't play online casino games etc. etc...that pretty much uses a computer for recipes and shopping - has their computer taken over by spyware in just 3 days...on a box that has an updated virus program and a spyware app.
Oh...I should also mention...I installed Google Chrome and removed IE shortcuts.

P.S. - It also installed an extension within Chrome without Chrome giving any warning. If I wasn't savy...and just removed the RelKnow program - it would still have been active as a Chrome extension.

All I'm saying is we both know how biased you are against M$. I have my block of salt handy..........

 

[iamwhatiseem]

That's what they made Avast, Malwarebytes and Firefox/Google add ons/extensions for........ so the unwashed masses can surf and download in relative safety........
Of course you knew that, right? You protected her new computer for her, right?

Obviously...the first thing I did was uninstall McCafee and install avast and spybot. I am more than a little surprised that neither of these stopped the program. I went to the avast forums and whalaaa...complaints from others that avast doesn't catch this apparently well known spyware.
The point is that in just 3 days the damn OS already has malware. It's not like it is a teenagers machine. I looked at her history (which is how I figured out where it came from of course) - macys, macys, JC Penney, macy's, American Eagle, macy's...and oh...what's this?..."Windows-7-themes.com"...dang it....
It is pretty bad that an average person, who is clueless about anything tech-wise, who doesn't surf porn, doesn't download games...doesn't play online casino games etc. etc...that pretty much uses a computer for recipes and shopping - has their computer taken over by spyware in just 3 days...on a box that has an updated virus program and a spyware app.
Oh...I should also mention...I installed Google Chrome and removed IE shortcuts.

P.S. - It also installed an extension within Chrome without Chrome giving any warning. If I wasn't savy...and just removed the RelKnow program - it would still have been active as a Chrome extension.

All I'm saying is we both know how biased you are against M$. I have my block of salt handy..........

Biased?...me?

True...but at least my bias is based on experience rather than opinion.
And I gotta tell you...my wifes laptop getting spyware 3 days after buying didn't do much to help the bias.

 

[Ringel05]

Obviously...the first thing I did was uninstall McCafee and install avast and spybot. I am more than a little surprised that neither of these stopped the program. I went to the avast forums and whalaaa...complaints from others that avast doesn't catch this apparently well known spyware.
The point is that in just 3 days the damn OS already has malware. It's not like it is a teenagers machine. I looked at her history (which is how I figured out where it came from of course) - macys, macys, JC Penney, macy's, American Eagle, macy's...and oh...what's this?..."Windows-7-themes.com"...dang it....
It is pretty bad that an average person, who is clueless about anything tech-wise, who doesn't surf porn, doesn't download games...doesn't play online casino games etc. etc...that pretty much uses a computer for recipes and shopping - has their computer taken over by spyware in just 3 days...on a box that has an updated virus program and a spyware app.
Oh...I should also mention...I installed Google Chrome and removed IE shortcuts.

P.S. - It also installed an extension within Chrome without Chrome giving any warning. If I wasn't savy...and just removed the RelKnow program - it would still have been active as a Chrome extension.

All I'm saying is we both know how biased you are against M$. I have my block of salt handy..........

Biased?...me?

True...but at least my bias is based on experience rather than opinion.
And I gotta tell you...my wifes laptop getting spyware 3 days after buying didn't do much to help the bias.

With the vast, vast, vast majority of malware written to attack Windows one's chances of getting infected is really pretty high. If tomorrow Linux suddenly took 30% share of the market share I guarantee the attacks would start immediately and with most people those attacks would succeed. The typical user doesn't know how to protect Windows let alone a Linux distro.

 

[oldernwiser]

All I'm saying is we both know how biased you are against M$. I have my block of salt handy..........

Biased?...me?

True...but at least my bias is based on experience rather than opinion.
And I gotta tell you...my wifes laptop getting spyware 3 days after buying didn't do much to help the bias.

With the vast, vast, vast majority of malware written to attack Windows one's chances of getting infected is really pretty high. If tomorrow Linux suddenly took 30% share of the market share I guarantee the attacks would start immediately and with most people those attacks would succeed. The typical user doesn't know how to protect Windows let alone a Linux distro.

Except... within a week of an attack being found, there would be a ripple of updates available to shut the door to that kind of attack, and most current distros would perform that update automatically. If Linux grabbed a 30% market share, there would be even MORE eyes on the open source code we use and would actually serve to close vulnerabilities before they're exploited.

 

[Ringel05]

Biased?...me?

True...but at least my bias is based on experience rather than opinion.
And I gotta tell you...my wifes laptop getting spyware 3 days after buying didn't do much to help the bias.

With the vast, vast, vast majority of malware written to attack Windows one's chances of getting infected is really pretty high. If tomorrow Linux suddenly took 30% share of the market share I guarantee the attacks would start immediately and with most people those attacks would succeed. The typical user doesn't know how to protect Windows let alone a Linux distro.

Except... within a week of an attack being found, there would be a ripple of updates available to shut the door to that kind of attack, and most current distros would perform that update automatically. If Linux grabbed a 30% market share, there would be even MORE eyes on the open source code we use and would actually serve to close vulnerabilities before they're exploited.

You missed the point. I use Linux myself as well as Windows so I'm familiar with both's strengths and weaknesses. The common end user has little clue how to secure Windows let alone Linux and they would make up the bulk of users if Linux ever grabbed 30% of the market share.
Hell, I'm using Bodhi Linux on an older Dell and all updates have to be done via Terminal, apparently it doesn't seem to do auto updates. How many common end users do you think would even know what Terminal is let alone know how to use it?

 

[Douger]

Thanks for the reminder Ringel. 32 mb worth.

 

[PeteEU]

My wife's laptop finally gave up the ghost...if it was one of my boxes I would buy a system from zareason and wait the 4-5 days till it arrives. Not the better half...so I went to Besy Buy and bought her a laptop. I really didn't want a Windows system on the network...but I want peace in the home more.
We haven't had this thing for 3 whole days yet and right off the bat it has spyware on it. Jesus Christ...3 days!! Windows 7 is safer???

Thank God I am paranoid about Windows and checked her system. Right off the bat I noticed a new icon in the system tray called "Relevant Knowledge"....wtf is this...
Sure enough it is a website tracker, knows all of the applications you have, your email accounts etc. etc. F*ckiing Winblows.

I was curious as to how it got on here. Turns out she wanted to change the desktop background, she thought she was downloading wallpaper but instead was downloading a theme...which also installed the spyware.

It is an error 40... it sitting 40 centimetres from the screen. Only way that can get on your Windows 7 machine is if someone allowed it. So either you or your wife said yes when you should have said no, or you or your wife installed a program and this "gem" followed with it and you did not notice the screen where it asked if it could install it self.. quite common... usually it is a tool bar or a browser, but it can be anything. And as you found out... it was your wife.

Only reason this is not happening on your linux box, is that they cant be bothered to make the it for linux since no one uses it.

Blaming Windows for the actions of the user is just lame. It can happen just as well on OSX, Linux .. hell even dos!

As I said, it was an "error 40".

 

[PeteEU]

Biased?...me?

True...but at least my bias is based on experience rather than opinion.
And I gotta tell you...my wifes laptop getting spyware 3 days after buying didn't do much to help the bias.

With the vast, vast, vast majority of malware written to attack Windows one's chances of getting infected is really pretty high. If tomorrow Linux suddenly took 30% share of the market share I guarantee the attacks would start immediately and with most people those attacks would succeed. The typical user doesn't know how to protect Windows let alone a Linux distro.

Except... within a week of an attack being found, there would be a ripple of updates available to shut the door to that kind of attack, and most current distros would perform that update automatically. If Linux grabbed a 30% market share, there would be even MORE eyes on the open source code we use and would actually serve to close vulnerabilities before they're exploited.

It is already happening to OSX. It has reached almost 10% of the market in some countries, and malware and spyware is exploding on the platform. And of course OSX is the most insecure OS out there. The only thing that is really holding back the malware producers is the fact that OSX is unix based, so it would be like eating one of their own.. but it wont prevent them long when they realise that the average Mac user is so lax on security.

If linux had even remotely the same marketshare, then we would soon see malware explode on that platform...

It is more than often not Windows fault that there is malware on a PC...it is an error 40... user fault. This error 40 can happen on any OS..

 

[Synthaholic]

With the vast, vast, vast majority of malware written to attack Windows one's chances of getting infected is really pretty high. If tomorrow Linux suddenly took 30% share of the market share I guarantee the attacks would start immediately and with most people those attacks would succeed. The typical user doesn't know how to protect Windows let alone a Linux distro.

Except... within a week of an attack being found, there would be a ripple of updates available to shut the door to that kind of attack, and most current distros would perform that update automatically. If Linux grabbed a 30% market share, there would be even MORE eyes on the open source code we use and would actually serve to close vulnerabilities before they're exploited.

You missed the point. I use Linux myself as well as Windows so I'm familiar with both's strengths and weaknesses. The common end user has little clue how to secure Windows let alone Linux and they would make up the bulk of users if Linux ever grabbed 30% of the market share.
Hell, I'm using Bodhi Linux on an older Dell and all updates have to be done via Terminal, apparently it doesn't seem to do auto updates. How many common end users do you think would even know what Terminal is let alone know how to use it?

You are applying his comment to an obscure version of Linux, which would not be the 30% market grabber. That would be Ubuntu, which is easily updated.

 

[Ringel05]

Except... within a week of an attack being found, there would be a ripple of updates available to shut the door to that kind of attack, and most current distros would perform that update automatically. If Linux grabbed a 30% market share, there would be even MORE eyes on the open source code we use and would actually serve to close vulnerabilities before they're exploited.

You missed the point. I use Linux myself as well as Windows so I'm familiar with both's strengths and weaknesses. The common end user has little clue how to secure Windows let alone Linux and they would make up the bulk of users if Linux ever grabbed 30% of the market share.
Hell, I'm using Bodhi Linux on an older Dell and all updates have to be done via Terminal, apparently it doesn't seem to do auto updates. How many common end users do you think would even know what Terminal is let alone know how to use it?

You are applying his comment to an obscure version of Linux, which would not be the 30% market grabber. That would be Ubuntu, which is easily updated.

I was simply making one reference to make a specific point, ya know, like you guys do in politics. Besides the current top dog is Mint ever since Ubuntu came out with Unity.

 

[Synthaholic]

You missed the point. I use Linux myself as well as Windows so I'm familiar with both's strengths and weaknesses. The common end user has little clue how to secure Windows let alone Linux and they would make up the bulk of users if Linux ever grabbed 30% of the market share.
Hell, I'm using Bodhi Linux on an older Dell and all updates have to be done via Terminal, apparently it doesn't seem to do auto updates. How many common end users do you think would even know what Terminal is let alone know how to use it?

You are applying his comment to an obscure version of Linux, which would not be the 30% market grabber. That would be Ubuntu, which is easily updated.

I was simply making one reference to make a specific point, ya know, like you guys do in politics. Besides the current top dog is Mint ever since Ubuntu came out with Unity.

Is Mint easy to update? Can you set it to automatically update?

 

[Sallow]

My wife's laptop finally gave up the ghost...if it was one of my boxes I would buy a system from zareason and wait the 4-5 days till it arrives. Not the better half...so I went to Besy Buy and bought her a laptop. I really didn't want a Windows system on the network...but I want peace in the home more.
We haven't had this thing for 3 whole days yet and right off the bat it has spyware on it. Jesus Christ...3 days!! Windows 7 is safer???
Thank God I am paranoid about Windows and checked her system. Right off the bat I noticed a new icon in the system tray called "Relevant Knowledge"....wtf is this...
Sure enough it is a website tracker, knows all of the applications you have, your email accounts etc. etc. F*ckiing Winblows.
I was curious as to how it got on here. Turns out she wanted to change the desktop background, she thought she was downloading wallpaper but instead was downloading a theme...which also installed the spyware.

Goodbye *&*^@ Windows 7....she is getting LinuxMint

Well..you think that very same thing wouldn't happen in LinuxMint?



I run a CentOS server and Window 7 with McAfee total protection.

Pretty happy with it.