Advanced Plus Security blackice’s 2020 Security Config

Last updated
Jan 1, 2020
How it's used?
For home and private use
Operating system
Windows 10
Log-in security
Security updates
Allow security updates and latest features
User Access Control
Always notify
Real-time security
MIcrosoft Defender
Macrium Reflect Image Gurdian
OSArmor
Firewall security
About custom security
Configure Defender: High
OSArmor tweaked to cover extra functions I don't use.
Periodic malware scanners
EEK, MBAM, ESET online scanner
Malware sample testing
I do not participate in malware testing
Browser(s) and extensions
Firefox-
Malwarebytes Browser Guard
uBlock Origin
1PasswordX

Edge Chromium Beta-
Smartscreen enabled
1PasswordX
uBlock Origin

Chrome-
uBlock Origin
Malwarebytes Browser Guard
1PasswordX

Brave-
Shields on
1PasswordX
Malwarebytes Browser Guard
Maintenance tools
RunBySmartscreen
Process Monitor
HWinfo64
MSI Afterburner
Bandizip
File and Photo backup
Onedrive - Microsoft 365
Google Drive
System recovery
Macrium Reflect Home - weekly
Image Guardian Enabled
Risk factors
    • Gaming
    • Logging into my bank account
    • Browsing to popular websites
    • Streaming audio/video content from shady sites
Computer specs
i7 6700
16 GB DDR4 3000
RTX 2060 Super
256 SSD
512 SSD
1 TB HDD

All home devices behind a Gryphon router.

fabiobr

Level 12
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Mar 28, 2019
561
So apparently with a fresh install, even on the same M$ account, Windows 10 doesn’t recognize apps in their windowsapps folders outside the c:. It is also a folder that is basically impossible to delete. I managed to mostly empty them, but windows failed to be able to use the secondary drives to install windows apps because of those old folders. The solution is apparently format the drives. This is only really a problem for gamers who need the space of a secondary drive for windows apps. Very much a bummer.
This is a headache! I suffered when did a clean install of Windows and later discovered the Xbox Game pass games is not recognized in the new clean install of Windows. Had to format all the drive and install games all over again.
 
Last edited:

blackice

Level 38
Thread author
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Apr 1, 2019
2,731
This is a headache! I suffored when did a clean install of Windows and later discovered the Xbox Game pass games is not recognized in the new clean install of Windows. Had to format all the drive and install games all over again.
That is exactly what happened to me. If you are just reimaging an old image I found that starting the install on the same drive can cause it to detect the games sometimes. Windows Apps have a lot of promise, but they just miss the mark.
 

fabiobr

Level 12
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Mar 28, 2019
561
I installed ESET after an update to 2004 that went pretty well. Apparently the old version of the HEIF Image Extension app isn’t compatible with ESET’s 2004 update. I reinstalled windows with a refresh and data wipe. Now reinstalled ESET and it’s working fine. Going to compare performance to Bitdefender and see which one will stay on the gaming machine. I’m inheriting my wife’s XPS 15 as she decided to go back to a Mac for better compatibility with her uses. Filming on an iPhone is a pain in the butt with a PC. But a win for me, already have new RAM in hand.


Removed-
WD

Added-
ESET IS
I love ESET lightness, well designed and highly configurable. But I still feel more protected with Bitdefender or Kaspersky.

ATC at Bitdefender is very godd, while ESET doesn't even have a behavior blocker.
 

fabiobr

Level 12
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Mar 28, 2019
561
I went back to Bitdefender for the gaming rig and am putting ESET on my inherited laptop, ladyice's macbook arrived :)

Removed-
ESET IS

Added-
Bitdefender IS
I have a 4GB old laptop and feel Bitdefender lighter than Kaspersky, although it uses more RAM.

It's a 4 core Celeron and BD uses less CPU than Kaspersky for what I see. But, of course, nothing beats the lightness of ESET.
 

fabiobr

Level 12
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Mar 28, 2019
561
That is exactly what happened to me. If you are just reimaging an old image I found that starting the install on the same drive can cause it to detect the games sometimes. Windows Apps have a lot of promise, but they just miss the mark.
You mean the games being installed on the same system drive or installing the system on the previous same drive and game on another?

Here I let SSD to the system/main softwares and HDD for the games.
 

blackice

Level 38
Thread author
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Apr 1, 2019
2,731
You mean the games being installed on the same system drive or installing the system on the previous same drive and game on another?

Here I let SSD to the system/main softwares and HDD for the games.
In this case it was setup so my system was on SSD and the games were in a separate hdd. So when I reimage the SSD the hdd still has the game folder. But occasionally W10 won’t recognize the HDD as being the right format...o_O very annoying to reformat.
 

blackice

Level 38
Thread author
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Apr 1, 2019
2,731
Never heard back from Bitdefender about issues with auto profile switching. It was updating even with the game profile on, and the game profile was getting stuck on with various launchers running, even with no game running. It was also the thing preventing windows from keeping it's sleep settings. I did their basic trouble shooting and they were responsive through that, but once they asked for me to use their recording tool and reproduce the issue I never heard back. They didn't even confirm they received the file from the recording tool. So:

Removed:
Bitdefender

Applied:
Configure Defender on High for now. May use ESET while I still have the license. But my experimenting patience has worn thin. ESET is reliable and less buggy.

Note: The bug I encountered with BD isn't a deal breaker for most people. Most of the time nobody would be affected by this. I would still recommend it. But as I was using it as a family solution and my wife moved back to Mac, I have no reason to stick with it.
 
Last edited:

SeriousHoax

Level 47
Well-known
Mar 16, 2019
3,630
There is a syncing function I’ve never tried because everybody says it sucks and to wait for the new update for sync, which is supposedly almost ready.
Ow ok then. I can wait. I'm also looking forward to their extension support on Android. They're working on it but still a long way to go I think.
 
F

ForgottenSeer 85179

Remember that Brave handles referers and some other chromium internals more securely/privately than Edge or Chrome.
Let's do the test:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=useragent&t=hk&ia=answer

My result in Edge:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/84.0.4147.125 Safari/537.36 Edg/84.0.522.59
Other HTTP headers
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3;q=0.9
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Accept-Language: de,de-DE;q=0.9,en;q=0.8,en-GB;q=0.7,en-US;q=0.6
Host: duckduckgo.com
Referer: DuckDuckGo — Privacy, simplified.
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/84.0.4147.125 Safari/537.36 Edg/84.0.522.59
DNT: 1
SEC-FETCH-DEST: document
SEC-FETCH-MODE: navigate
SEC-FETCH-SITE: same-origin
SEC-FETCH-USER: ?1
UPGRADE-INSECURE-REQUESTS: 1
 

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