Rolo's Config

[Cats-4_Owners-2]

I've experienced a measure of satisfaction along with a heaping helping (serving) of entertainment whilst reading your configuration saga!
I found it exciting 'and' entertaining!
..and no animals were hurt in the production of this security configuration either.

 

[Rolo]

I dunno...when my computer was out of its furniture, I left the room for a bit and returned and put it back.

A bit later, I kept hearing an odd noise from it, thinking maybe a cord got too close to a fan blade or something and eventually figured out my cat was behind there. Perhaps he got worried, heh.

 

[Cats-4_Owners-2]

*Laughing* I've found that each of our cats, at one time or another, seem to find the warmth (or maybe the steady hum) of these computers both very pleasant & comforting! That, & the fact we tend to park for long periods of time in front of our own personal "Mission Control" space craft monitors also makes these surface structures paricularly inviting perches or hiding places. Our black furred girl (not pictured) will sleep on top of the keyboards if allowed to every chance she gets!

 

[Rolo]

Our black furred girl (not pictured) will sleep on top of the keyboards if allowed to every chance she gets!

So she's a programmer then?

--+--

I switched from Multi-Commander back to XYplorer (free); both are nice but MC would crash with shell extensions and XYplorer looks a lot nicer and runs more smoothly.

I switched from Norton ConnectSafe (DNS) back to Comodo DNS; Norton blocked HumbleBundle downloads (legit indie games) with generic heuristics but didn't provide an option to continue. Dear Norton, Ever since Speed Disk, you've made great products; however, you are not smarter than everyone else so stop with the "we know better and will protect you from yourself" routine. v/r, //r

To block OpenCandy everywhere without the need of MBAM real-time protection, I added the following to my router "Block Sites" keywords:

*.opencandy.com
opencandy.com
tracking.opencandy.com.s3.amazonaws.com

On my router at least (NetGear) "*.opencandy.com" does not block "opencandy.com".

Finally, I am really, really liking GlassWire. The systray icon turns bright red when you're sending a bunch of traffic. It's really understated software.

Currently, I'm testing Xvirus, Crystal Security, Immunet, Emsisoft Anti-Malware (and yes, they are all actually running with Qihoo without conflict...just really slow.

 

[Cats-4_Owners-2]

I'm very interested in so much that has been shared here, ..but my thoughts keep trailing back to the first line,
"So she's a programmer then?"

 

[Rolo]

Added:
Emsisoft Emergency Kit (nice)
SpywareBlaster (seems nice but may be redundant; it reminds me of Spybot S&D before it got all weird)
SUPERAntispyware

I tried Xvirus but it was slow (13 hours to perform a scan that takes 20 mins), prone to hanging, had difficulties with UNC paths, and had a lot of false positives.

I tried WinPatrol but it crashed during install (doesn't claim Win10 compatibility)

I tried ToolWiz Timemachine and it looks nice but it fails to restore from a snapshot (Incorrect Function error IIRC), could be a Win10 issue; I'll revisit later

I tried Rollback Rx but it's recovery installation killed Win10 bootup; will revisit when Win10 compatibility is established

I'm looking for a free replacement to ShadowDefender 1.2.

 

[Deleted member 178]

I'm looking for a free replacement to ShadowDefender 1.2.

Tony is working on a version compatible with win10 , will be released before 29th July.

 

[Rolo]

1.2 is compatible with Win10; it just can't write changes without predefined exclusions or specifying files (not useful if I don't know all the changes) and any update wouldn't be free to me anyway (giveaway restriction). I'm looking for one (if it even exists) that can list changes that I can selectively commit--or snapshots (Toolwiz looks promising...have to wait for update though)

 

[Rolo]

Paragon Rescue Kit 14 Free is the Bee's Knees. I can make a USB bootable disk with it and include whatever drivers I want and it just works. It images/restores quickly whole disks or partitions. It saves in various virtual hard drive formats (VMWare, Hyper-V, VirtualPC).

I switched to 360 Essentials (finally Win10 version of that came out) and I like it far better--no bloat!

When installing Gimpshop, I discovered a new bundlecrapware wrapper (it was pretty ridiculous) so I added downloadadmin.com and *.downloadadmin.com to my router's blacklist. I'll just stick with regular GIMP.

Due to Win10 activation fiasco, I gave up trying to clean install Win10 Pro on my laptop; I'll have to stick with Home. I really wanted to use BitLocker in case the device ever got lost/stolen, the data wouldn't be a concern. I can't use TrueCrypt since it interferes with Secure Boot, can't use UEFI, etc.--it's too old now.

On a related note: Why isn't there a free, easy way to enable the password on a Self-Encrypting Device (SED)? It's hardly "self" when it requires expensive software to configure it. I put a Samsung 850 EVO SSD in the laptop and it does Class 0, TCG Opal, eDrive but my BIOS doesn't support ATA password (so that rules out Class 0) and Pro won't activate so that rules out BitLocker/eDrive. Any ideas?

 

[Deleted member 178]

Due to Win10 activation fiasco

i don't see it as a fiasco, my activation was successful at 1st try even with insider's version.

what procedure exactly have you done?

 

[Kent]

So she's a programmer then?

--+--

I switched from Multi-Commander back to XYplorer (free); both are nice but MC would crash with shell extensions and XYplorer looks a lot nicer and runs more smoothly.

I switched from Norton ConnectSafe (DNS) back to Comodo DNS; Norton blocked HumbleBundle downloads (legit indie games) with generic heuristics but didn't provide an option to continue. Dear Norton, Ever since Speed Disk, you've made great products; however, you are not smarter than everyone else so stop with the "we know better and will protect you from yourself" routine. v/r, //r

To block OpenCandy everywhere without the need of MBAM real-time protection, I added the following to my router "Block Sites" keywords:

*.opencandy.com
opencandy.com
tracking.opencandy.com.s3.amazonaws.com

On my router at least (NetGear) "*.opencandy.com" does not block "opencandy.com".

Finally, I am really, really liking GlassWire. The systray icon turns bright red when you're sending a bunch of traffic. It's really understated software.

Currently, I'm testing Xvirus, Crystal Security, Immunet, Emsisoft Anti-Malware (and yes, they are all actually running with Qihoo without conflict...just really slow.

Strangely Glasswire is not working on my system........Always shows "Unable to connect" Tried everything possible

 

[Rolo]

i don't see it as a fiasco, my activation was successful at 1st try even with insider's version.

what procedure exactly have you done?

Because it worked for you doesn't mean millions of others had the same experience.

What I have done: http://malwaretips.com/threads/windows-10-provides-the-official-iso.48944/page-2

If GlassWire is cycling "Attempting to connect", open Settings and clear all history until you see the graph clear (you have to hit it when it is connected). It's an issue being worked. If that isn't the issue, check your GlassWire service to see if it starts/stays running. They are active on their forum if you're stuck.

 

[Rolo]

UNCLE!​

The false-positives are ridiculous. They are ridiculous because I have to keep adding the same false-positives to the trust list.

They are also ridiculous because these aren't completely obscure programs we're talking about:

• A widely-known digitally-signed screen capture program should not be flagged as malware; i.e. Static-X--no, wait, that's a great metal band--ShareX
• FreeFileSync
• Spywareblaster
• Interlinear Scripture Advisor--OK, maybe that's not widely-known, especially in China, so you get that one

Qihoo wears on the executive function too much; I uninstalled it. Avast! is worse with increasing false-positives and giant sliding advertisements (wife-at-the-computer: "Upgrade Avast for business? No...I don't have a business and neither will you if you keep it up!" heh).

Since this is still my Insider Preview build on my desktop that I'm going to rebuild in a few weeks, I don't have a problem experimenting. Currently, I have Avira (free) and MBAE (free) installed (always free; I'll run Windows Defender before I buy a security product and at this rate, I may very well end up that way anyhow).

I'm not so sure about MBAE (I know the theory but...meh...feel like I'm preparing for a meteor strike--a most unlikely event).
I remember Avira having daily+ popup ads; does it still? (I guess time will tell.)

I have Panda Free lined up next.

 

[Ink]

Avira removed the Nag screen and Ask toolbar about 2-3 years ago. However, Avira Online Essentials gets installed, but can be uninstalled afterwards. A minor nuisance.

 

[Rolo]

Oh nice. It uninstalled simply enough. This seems like a good deal; it has:

• Top-notch signature detection
• Cloud (the signature-based response to 0-day)
• Registry protection
• Process termination protection
• Hosts file protection
• Really good performance reviews (reason enough to "upgrade" from Windows Defender)

I uninstalled the browser protection since it didn't seem to do anything I don't have already and it's ugly, putting a green bar at the top of the page display (why didn't they use the icon!?); besides, I didn't get it for browser protection.

 

[jamescv7]

Panda Free AV is totally fine and its nuisance on advertisement is literally mild.The thing to opt out is the toolbar but its reliance are from cloud and not through their offline database as they store only few of generics/heuristics.

 

[Rolo]

its nuisance on advertisement is literally mild

In my book, "nuisance" is intrinsically mutually exclusive with "mild". I have zero tolerance for nuisances or advertisements.

So just a few minutes ago, I get this "mild nuisance" from Avira:

This actually distracted me from an other far more important thing I was focused on!​

 

[Deleted member 178]

Nothing is free in this world...

 

[FleischmannTV]

This was an Online Essentials ad, right?

 

[Rolo]

It popped up a while after I uninstalled Online Essentials (Was it for Online Essentials? I don't know; I didn't click on it). I'm keeping Avira running to see if it will show another.