Hard Light Productions Forums
Archived Boards => The Archive => Blackwater Operations => Topic started by: Charismatic on November 11, 2008, 04:47:55 pm
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Actually, i have not finished playing though the Derilect campaign. I got to the first mission with like 100 Shivan Cap ships. Sence FSO ****ing lags, if more then 1 cap ship is on screen, its unplayalbe. My progreess came to a halt.
I cant scan anything, i Finally got to the correct ship, and the correct subsystem, yet it didnt scan. So i said **** it, and have not played sence.
Looked like a cool mission, i just wish i could ****ing play it.
Yeah im mad about that...
But, i think my Death of FS topic is the most refrenced, and most quoted first FS\FS3 topic.
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What are your computer's specs? FSOpen shouldn't lag.
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Even if it lags, you should be able to play it on a computer with (updated) Intel graphics drivers, 256 MB RAM and a 2.4 GHz Intel Celeron D processor if you remove all the mediaVPs excluding core.vp.
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Even keeping MV_Core.vp shouldn't have any effect on performance, since all it contains of note are a few pieces of interface art and some tables.
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...if you remove all the mediaVPs excluding mv_core.vp.
I stand corrected.
If I recall correctly, mv_core.vp is the only one that doesn't use up lots of system resources. Mind you, my family computer is so low-end that I only use the essential mediaVPs.
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I thought we needed a certain few VP's to run SCP\FSO? Sence when do we only need Core?
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Like I said, "If I recall correctly". I haven't touched my PC copy of FS2_Open for a very long time now because I have a copy of the game on my MacBook.
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Core is the only one of the MediaVPs that's strictly necessary (and I'm not even sure that it is strictly necessary, though I wouldn't try to run FS2_Open without it). All of the others contain the various optional graphical effects that would tax your video card to begin with. Deactivating some of the launcher flags even with some of the MediaVPs present would presumably aid your cause as well.
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I have a Laptop with a un upgradable Video card.
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Laptops don't always make the best gaming systems. Actually they never make the ideal gaming system. They are great for portability tho!
For proper gaming...a hand made system is still the best. It seems a bit daunting at first but I've built 5 systems (2 for myself) over the last few years and they have been the best experiences possible. Its a bit freaky the first time you boot it up and hope that you did everything right and realizing this system is your own work. Very satisfying.
Also...its cheaper :)
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Oh no, now others and I are getting off topic with computer talk :D
My fault too :)
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Don't bother with IE. Just use Firefox.
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I like IE best. Firefox is ok for Vids and such.
But i cannot stand the 30 sec delay before opening. Horrid.
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Don't bother with IE. Just use Firefox.
I heard that before but I don't want that. For one, I don't want to mess up IE. For two, I will not take my chances with Firefox having malware or weird things (probably the reason it hangs for 30 seconds, Charismatic) and lacking built in features. For 3, I like IE and I don't want to have to get used to using a new browser. But I had a feeling someone would say things like "use firefox" after posting a comment like I did about addons. I heard the same thing before years ago probably on this forum; I tried it, I believe, and then I deleted it on purpose.
Weird...you seem like the type that'd be using Firefox.
Couple of things there...Firefox is the least likely to have malware attached to it. Its an open source project. If you want to you can go and look at the code yourself. There isn't anything hidden with Firefox. With IE its really hard to know. Second it shouldn't take 30 seconds to do anything....Firefox loads in under 2 seconds for me even on a cold boot. Its standards compliant, its flexible, and while its grown a little bloated the recent upgrades have trimmed its memory use and its very responsive.
There are perfectly good reasons to not use Firefox...but malware and speed are not likely to be ones.
At least use Opera or something else. IE is the bane of my technical support existence unfortunately.
I'll stop now :D
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I heard that before but I don't want that. For one, I don't want to mess up IE. For two, I will not take my chances with Firefox having malware or weird things (probably the reason it hangs for 30 seconds, Charismatic) and lacking built in features. For 3, I like IE and I don't want to have to get used to using a new browser. But I had a feeling someone would say things like "use firefox" after posting a comment like I did about addons. I heard the same thing before years ago probably on this forum; I tried it, I believe, and then I deleted it on purpose.
Weird...you seem like the type that'd be using Firefox.
I'm not predictable. What about me makes you think I use Firefox? Being experienced in computers has nothing to do with using an alternate browser (but maybe the kids do because they think it is better, who knows). I would actually think the more experienced and aware about computer tech you are, the less reason you would see in using Firefox. Also, why fix something that isn't broken, you are used to using, works fast and perfectly after cleaning out some things, and know it is safe and has enough features?
If you have Firefox, what about windows updates for IE and security? I think it might negate the effect of security updates for IE. Why waste my time on it when things are fine the way they are with my browser and it is fast and has a pop up blocker and is safe and has many options already? I removed some toolbars too and I don't install yahoo toolbar anymore, for example. If you have the "my web search" toolbar, then you definitely have malware and a virus.
I recall using Firefox and it either not being user friendly or I was stuck on it and removed it because maybe something was not working right. I can't remember.
Will we fight the Auriga and rogue GTVI faction? Yes or no?
I take the team's lack of response as a "yes, we WILL fight them" and they don't want to tell, despite the fact that the thread is about answering these kinds of secret storyline plots.
All good points and people are free to use IE if they want to ...but my strong preference is not to use it and that is because I consider myself savvy enough to see IE's downfalls. IE7 was a big step forward and its moved into my realm of "its ok" but its not there yet. Its arguably still not secure enough to compete with Firefox or Opera and its standards support is still very sub standard so in my mind it is very broken. I do tech support for web applications...most of the time if there is a problem I get people to use Firefox which fixes the problems and they never come back to bug me again.
Also coding websites to get them to work properly in IE is a bloody nightmare. IE7 once again is semi-ok in this regard (it doesn't screw up quite as much) but far too many IE6 users are still out there. Trying to support them is an exercise in futility. I'm coding the BWO website right now for instance and IE6 is off the table...its support is just too poor. IE8 does look promising if they stick to their guns and actually support CSS 2.0 features...if it does then it'll be a heyday for web developers so we don't have to be stuck using old code and forced to limit support for the new stuff.
But people are indeed free to use whatever they want.
Indeed I stay away from toolbars as well. Fortunately Firefox comes with none of those on its own.
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Oh and I split the topic since its fine to keep talking about this stuff here but we were a bit off topic for the other thread. Should have done that a few posts ago :)
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Browser wars, you gotta love them... ;7
I'm with IceFire here. Pretty much everything else is better than Internet Explorer (6), and IE7 only fixed the most glaring problems so I consider it a broken browser still. The fact that many sites lick Microsoft's boots and break their pages so that they work with IE doesn't make it a valid argument for not using a standards-compliant browser. If you want to see just how broken IE is, visit the ACID2 test (http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/) and see how your browser of choice mutilates the image rather valiantly...
I used Opera for a long time, started having some problems with it using 100% processor capacity starging from some whatever version, and then moved to Firefox and after configuring some add-ons (mouse gestures, NoScript, AdBlockPlus and a few others), Firefox 3 is in general the best browser I've used. I still use Opera (latest versions don't have the aforementioned CPU resource problem) for some things, but FF3 is my primary browser.
Also, talking about malware; I doubt IE has any, though some could consider that abortion of a program a malware in itself, but it certainly does make your PC more vulnerable to spyware, malware and other not so nice stuff... more so than by using Opera, Firefox or other browsers anyway.
On the topic of toolbars I have nothing good to say. Frakking insidious bastards of programs, embedding themselves into startup procedurs and slowing mah system boot down. What I hate the most are installers that helpfully make stuff like google toolbar power up on startup, without explicitely telling me so. I have never met a toolbar that would be actually needed or useful in any way. Blegh. :ick:
The only purpose I ever use IE for is updating Windows manually. That's the only thing I need it for... In fact the only reason I stick to Windows at all is that while it sucks to be dependant of a multinational corporation that seems to like doing it wrong on so many things is that other options are, at the moment, not viable for me. I wouldn't get a Mac if you paid me (well, I would, but I would sell it away as soon as I could) because Apple is more or less the same, except their stuff works marginally better and pays a lot more per performance. Linux distros, well, cursed be hardware manufacturers for not releasing specs or opening their driver sources altogether. As soon as things work sufficiently on the Linux side, I'll go there, but at the moment it's way too much of a hassle.
</rant>
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You do realize that having multiple anti-virus programs active at the same time is an open invitation to problems? They tend to conflict each other rather skillfully if they are trying to work at the same time... :nervous:
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That is why I asked. You said that you have multiple anti-virus programs. Note that I did not blatantly tell you that it's a bad idea to have more than one (though it tends to be unnecessary), just asked if you know to only keep one of them active at a time.
Out of curiosity... which AV softwares do you have installed?
Also, the fact still remains that your need to be worried about Internet security would be further reduced if you were not using IE, since other browsers are inherently more secure (they don't have the same key-ins and permissions to the system as Internet Exploder has since it's so deeply integrated to the operating system)... and they tend to work harder, better, faster and stronger on other regards as well. :p
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I agree with IceFire and HT too. IE7 works very well with Adobe Flash, but it keeps crashing once you have two or more tabs open (perhaps it's my computer at fault here...).
After so many years, I still feel that Internet Explorer keeps screaming, "HEY, DAMN YOU! DON'T INSTALL ADD-ONS!", whereas Firefox says, "I'm America! We can take in everything!"
Firefox is excellent. I've got AdBlockPlus and bbcodeXtra installed, both of them fulfilling the holes that IE7 have. However, Firefox runs horribly with Flash applets. Some sites just don't work on Firefox like they do on other browsers. The official Korean Grand Chase website (http://game3.netmarble.net/chase), for example, is Flash-heavy, and on Firefox, some parts of the site just don't work like they should.
Opera comes with the Adobe CS3 Suite that Ngee Ann Polytechnic installed into my Mac, and I've tried using it to play the infamous Rawhide swf (you can find it in The Classics), but I note a small frame skip.
Now, AV software...on both my family PCs, I have the AVG installed (the free one, by the way). On my Mac, I have Symantec Antivirus preinstalled, and it scans every single removable device that's attached to my Mac.
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Double-post. :D
Oh, by the way, shouldn't this be moved to Off-Topic Discussion?
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You're screwed. Norton Anti-Virus hasn't been worth a damn since before Symantec bought it out. Furthermore, it, and McAfee are specifically targeted by virus makers now. One of the newest trends is making a virus that tricks Norton into running it, thus infecting every file that Norton scans. I recommend getting AVG or Avast, both available for free. AVG's free edition is specifically available at http://free.grisoft.com/ . I can't tell you where AVast is, as I've never personally used it. That said, I've never heard any of the people I know who use it complain about it missing things.
Hijack this is ok, but it's limited. I recommend getting Spybot Search & Destroy as well, available from http://www.safer-networking.org/
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I can't tell you where AVast is, as I've never personally used it. That said, I've never heard any of the people I know who use it complain about it missing things.
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
I'd vote for avast! for a few reasons. First, it has been translated to numerous languages (scroll down the page for localizations), and having programs with one's native language is always fun. In addition, it is indeed free and even though it has a better version that costs money, it doesn't advertise it all that much. Furthermore, the most exciting thing is the scheduled scan. If you set a scheduled scan and boot your computer, avast! will scan your system during startup, before majority of the processes have even been started. That way it is most possible to remove certain viruses and such that would normally be locked so that other AV software cannot do a thing.
Also, running spyware scanners such as Ad-Aware can't hurt.
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If you run Spybot, Adaware doesn't find anything after. Might as well just get Spybot Search & Destroy and cut the middleman. Plus Spybot can actually immunize your computer against large amounts of spyware so that the stuff can't get on there in the first place. upwards of 100000 objects are immunized against on my system at this time.
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Yeah, Spybot's immunization feature is really handy. I'm fairly sure it's because of that that I haven't had anything picked up more severe than a tracking cookie or two for a good year now.
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I get the feeling you're probably wasting your time trying to enlighten him, Herra. Well-intentioned as it is.
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I'm not screwed because for one, I have multiple programs and back up plans if you were listening. For two, Norton has detected viruses before on my system ;)
That says nothing about how effective it is. How can you be sure that some other anti-virus software wouldn't have detected far more?
About you saying the viruses trick Norton; ever heard of definition updates? That is one reason they are there. So these viruses that trick Norton won't in the future.
New viruses are written, you know.
Read my posts more carefully and explore ALL of the programs I mentioned above. Actually click the links and READ the reviews and try those programs out before thinking I'm screwed. You have no idea. Plus, some of what you say could be rumors (don't believe everything you hear). Give me proof and do research first.
Do you know that computers techs use Norton at businesses? Some of what you say is probably a made up thing to scare people (fear tactics) and can also be used to cause a business to lose business by not buying their product. Norton infecting every file on my system? Yeah right. That would me over 100,000 files easily depending on how many files you have. Do you have proof? Also you can't infect every file that Norton scans because you can't turn a file into a virus by scanning. Only adding a virus program to a folder.
Actually, if you read the reviews, they tend to say not so brilliant things about Norton. Some computer techs use Norton at businesses. So?
Viruses can inject code into existing files as well as create new files.
Do you realize I went to school for computing and then have experience with my hardware and software programs? My computer runs faster than it ever has, especially since I used malwarebytes.
How can you be sure it couldn't work even better?
School for computing?
Why you keep questioning my methods when they are working?
Because other methods could work better?
Do you have a computer degree?
Not yet, but getting there.
Have you spent countless hours on the net exploring other programs online and reading.
Hasn't everyone?
Is your computer super fast like mine and malware free?
Yes.
Some people think they know it all. I hate that.
Have you examined yourself lately?
I know I don't know it all but everything is working fine and I know that I know a lot. Stop questioning my methods when I know what I'm doing and when my way is working so good.
You're still assuming that the alternatives couldn't be better. Why?
I also have a program I bought online called Recover My Files that allows me to sometimes get back files that have long been deleted from my recycle bin.
I prefer to not delete things I wish to keep.
Also if you accidentally delete a picture of archive record, you can sometimes get it back as good as new. I also bought a special program called Pinnicle Game Profiler that allows me to play any pc game with a gamepad, even if the game was never made for that. It maps the buttons of the gamepad to the keyboard keys.
So? Maybe if you stopped buying so much random software you could spend the money on a faster computer.
I learned all this on my own and no help. Just by exploring certain programs by using certain keywords in google. I always use google as a search engine.
I believe that's the most common use for Google.
The official Korean Grand Chase website (http://game3.netmarble.net/chase), for example, is Flash-heavy, and on Firefox, some parts of the site just don't work like they should.
Sounds like a poorly designed website.
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Scipious already addressed some stuff, but whatever...
Do you realize I went to school for computing and then have experience with my hardware and software programs?
No, because you hadn't told that before and powerful though my mind is, it still has trouble accessing other peoples minds (I'm working on it though). Besides, a degree is never a surefire guarantee that you're actually good at the topic; there are quite a lot of incompetent people with all kinds of degrees in the world.
The fact that you can do something well doesn't mean that it can't be done better.
My computer runs faster than it ever has, especially since I used malwarebytes.
Faster than it ever has is not exactly a reliable measurement since it's relative to how it run previously. It does not mean that it could not run faster and better if you tried some other stuff. Like, for example, the fact that Firefox and Opera both run faster and more stable than Internet Explorer, don't hang or crash even half as often, load pages faster, start up faster and comply to the official W3-consortium defined standards waaay better than IE. And if you don't set them default browsers, there's no way they could ever mess up IE...
Why you keep questioning my methods when they are working?
I could throw the same question back to you. The fact that your methods work doesn't mean that other methods wouldn't work as well or better. Personally, I only have my own experiences to trust, and I only have bad experiences about Norton - though I suspect the Corporate edition might be different than personal edition, but no matter. It was a bloated piece of code that slowed down the startup procedure on my PC significantly and unnecessarily, and the firewall kept malfunctioning in a way that blocked all http/ftp protocol based connections - all browsers stopped working, but the connection itself worked fine; ping to router worked, pign to WAN worked, I could SSH connect to my uni account, it was just that the firewall process seemingly hanged at random times and couldn't be restarted/reseted without re-booting, which understandable became rather annoying very fast so I ditched Norton, tried F-Secure for a brief time, didn't have any specific issues but it was almost as bloated and massive startup slower as Norton was, so I moved to Avast!/Comodo antivirus/firewall combination, and haven't had any issues since then.
Also not that I am not questioning your methods per ce, but instead the certain knowledge you seem to have that you can't make things work any better at all. Things can always work better.
Do you have a computer degree? Have you spent countless hours on the net exploring other programs online and reading.
Again, degree is but an official badge of competence without as much real meaning as people would like to think. There are no reasons why self-taught people wouldn't have equal or better basic understanding of matters than people with an official degree on something, as long as we're not talking about a deeply specialized stuff. Computers is one of those things.
And yes, I would bet that many of the people on this forum and elsewhere on internets have spent a lot of time on testing different stuff, reading reports and doing their own experimentations on what works best. The general results tend to be that IE works worse than other options available, and similarly Norton tends to work a lot worse than free alternatives like AVG or Avast!. There are other examples as well, but getting overly specific wouldn't be worth the trouble.
However, if something works for you, who am I to deny that it doesn't work for you? I can question and suggest alternatives that work better for me, and you can - if you so choose - experiment the suggestions.
Is your computer super fast like mine and malware free?
I don't know, since I don't have your computer specs, either formal or tested, and I haven't used your PC (which is, in fact, the most reliable test of all). However, I would certainly hope that my PC is malware-free at the moment, since I haven't noticed anything out of ordinary, and the Spybot S&D test I run monthly usually just founds some tracking cookies and no more (and, incidentally, if I were using Internet Explorer it would keep finding a lot lot more stuff, and not so innocent either).
For a +3 years old computer, this thing is doing it's job really well. Wouldn't call it super fast but not a steamroller either.
Some people think they know it all. I hate that. I know I don't know it all but everything is working fine and I know that I know a lot. Stop questioning my methods when I know what I'm doing and when my way is working so good.
What Scipious said.... The fact that you don't seem to be willing to test Firefox/Opera/other alternative browsers tells me that you don't know all there is to know about them, for example. They are pretty much objectively proven to be better than IE on almost all regards (excluding compatibility with pages that are coded to work with Internet Explorer, ie. broken purposefully - like the page you mentioned). And it's not rumour talk either. Similarly I would suspect that no matter how fast as your computer seems to be working with Norton, you could get better results with lighter, free alternatives. Especially on boot cycle time. No rumours there either, but personal experiences with commercial antivirus mammoths. They just slow things down an inordinate amount on startup, and the free alternatives do as sufficient job with a lot less startup slowdown and/or system resources used.
I am also a member on the Yahoo Messenger support forum at www.bigblueball.com. So I know quite a bit about that program and tricks and tips about it, and also I know about using spoof emailers too and invisible checkers. But not programming. I can learn a lot there too about Yahoo and that is where I learned about malwarebytes. Are many of you zealous enough to take the time to learn all that out of choice?
Yahoo is something I have no interest in. At all. I don't need their services, and if anything they annoy me by those aforementioned toolbars that keep trying to sneak in my system with installers of other programs. Also, I have no illusions that I would ever know everything there is to know. I'm trying to concentrate on relevant issues, and I know and I'm still going to miss things occasionally. Getting information from other users around the Internet is an important source of info, but source criticism is to be applied on anything you haven't experimented yourself. I might check out the malwarebytes now that I know about it, and thus the information spreads. ;)
I also have a program I bought online called Recover My Files that allows me to sometimes get back files that have long been deleted from my recycle bin. Also if you accidentally delete a picture of archive record, you can sometimes get it back as good as new. I also bought a special program called Pinnicle Game Profiler that allows me to play any pc game with a gamepad, even if the game was never made for that. It maps the buttons of the gamepad to the keyboard keys. I learned all this on my own and no help. Just by exploring certain programs by using certain keywords in google. I always use google as a search engine.
Well... that kind of file recovery only works if there hasn't been rewrites to that disk section, since deleting the file (in Windows at least) doesn't actually remove the data from hard drive, but reference to that information and frees that location for saving new data. Pretty much any data recovery utility will do that for you by scanning the raw data on disk without using the references to it on the filesystem, and reconstruct the files from the data. But like said, it only works if the whole file is still intact on the disk. And, like Scipious, I prefer not to delete things I want to keep... :nervous:
About learning stuff - asking help is just as useful means of learning as independent research via google and other sources. Search engines are only helpful on relatively straightforward issues, more complex stuff is a lot more difficult to find that way, but if you post a help request on a forum related to matter, someone who knows about it will likely be there in a while to either help or point you to the information. So it doesn't really matter what you learn "on your own without help" and what you learn from others.
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Who said I was talking to you, Spicious? Why you quote me like I was talking to you?
Maybe because you posted on a public forum. Who were you talking to?
What? Didn't you see me admit that I didn't know everything? It looks likes I said I didn't know everything. Also the fact I continue to want to learn more should speak for itself. I know, you are all experts and I know absolutely nothing. Hehe. I shouldn't talk with the big boys who know it all.
You may say you want to learn more but your attitude would suggest otherwise.
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I don't consider "I don't wanna play with you no more" attitude a specifically "grown-up" one. :rolleyes:
Just a few questions, even if you dont want to answer them any more.
First issue:
Why use Internet Explorer despite the fact that it's not standard compliant, it's somewhat slower, more vulnerable and less stable and responsive than other browser options out there?
Reversed: Why not test and see if Firefox, Opera et al really are standard compliant, faster, less vulnerable and more stable and responsive than IE?
Browsers are relatively easy to install and test. It might take a bit of time to get used to slightly different interface, but I deeply recommend trying something, anything, instead of IE. If you dislike it, it's easy to move back to IE.
Second issue:
Why use Norton Internet Security despite the fact that it uses more resources, is slower (especially on startup), less effective and generally causes more issues than other equally or more capable AV/firewall applications out there?
Reversed: Why not test and see if the other programs (AVG and Avast! for free anti-virus programs, Comodo and Sunbelt Kerio for firewalls) actually use less resources, are vaster, more effective and cause less issues?
This one admittedly takes a bit more effort, seeing that you need to - at minimum - disable Norton from startup procedures, but if you have a non-production computer, please try those programs out and compare them to Norton. I'm relatively certain that you will notice a definite decrease in startup time at the very least, and who knows, you might find some virus that Norton hasn't noticed... :nervous:
If it's just a matter of preference, it would explain a lot. But logically, as long as you use Internet Explorer 6/7, your PC isn't as safe as it would be if you were using Firefox, Opera et al. Similarly, Norton is widely reported to cause problems - if you haven't had any, count yourself lucky. Also, Norton likely suffers from the same thing as Windows does - being shipped with a lot of computers as a preliminary Internet security suite, it makes it quite a common item in computers, and common items are often subject to more rigorous search for vulnerabilities and those flaws are targetted much more than the flaws in less used products. The reason why there are so few viruses for Macs is two-fold - first, it's a lot easier to make viruses for Windows environment, and second, there are a lot more badly protected Windows machines with silly users around to provide a good spreading ground for the viruses. As a consequence, a lot of viruses are made for Windows, and it makes sense that a lot of viruses specifically target Norton's flaws. So Norton is very likely somewhat less effective than some of the less used AV software suites.
Also remember that virus developers are always at least one step ahead of anti-virus developers, so definitions files don't always protect from the latest of the latest.
Still, I'm not saying that your PC can't be safe with the current way you do things. If you're smart with what you do, it's very easy to make sure that the computer is clean. In fact if you know what not to do, getting infected requires conscious effort in my opinion.
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That's common-sense stuff, Max. But it's good that you know and practice it; a lot of folks don't.
How old is High Max? Profile says 25, but that's not always accurate. He might just be a precocious little 'un, in which case we should be more tolerant.
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...I did try Firefox before. I said that in this forum recently. I tried it and didn't like it. I can't remember why but I think it made it so I couldn't navigate well or it wasn't user friendly.
Hmm... well, preferences are fair game, they can't really be argued. Firefox 3 is a bit different than FF2 though. On basic level, the interface layout is rather similar to Internet Explorer, though, so I don't see that being an overly difficult issue, and you can customize it relatively freely as well.
How many times must I say that I have multiple other programs that are free and safe and I have tried them? I have tried Clam anti-virus before but not now (it didn't seem effective). I wouldn't try a registry cleaner since I read certain things about it and one seemed to slow my pc down and might have had malware, so I removed it. I go in and manually remove some things. If you don't know what is good and what is bad, then you should look up that registry entry online and there is a website that has a table that tells you what each entry does.
Yeah, when fiddling with the registry directly, always make backups before doing anything. Applies to any registry cleaner as well.
I have Windows Defender, sysclean, hijackthis, and malwarebytes, besides Norton. Also, my realtime protection function on Norton isn't working but it still works if I scan for viruses. I must have done something years ago to screw that function up. But if in realtime protection mode, I have seen it catch viruses on the spot when opening a webpage. I have told people that Norton isn't so good compared to some others, but I keep it because I have witnessed it detecting a virus that the free anti-virus applications didn't catch and vice versa. So I keep them all and use them one after another (ending it before starting another, of course). I have Norton disabled by default in msconfig so it will never start unless I do it manually in the start menu. I'm not worried about resources since it is never in memory unless I start it manually, then I end it in task manager if I must. I know it slows the pc down when it is running and after. Then I restart and all is normal again. I noticed that ;) Anti-malware programs are also hard drive intensive applications and I wouldn't recommend playing a game at the same time :)
Hmm... I personally wouldn't trust Windows Defender to be as up-to-date as any auto-updating dedicated antivirus software. Also, I find the realtime protection the most usable thing in any anti-virus program. Scanning ability is a given, but realtime protection has real advantages - mainly, you can be a bit less lax about where you go in the net for example. I've had an occasional pop-up after following a relatively innocent looking link, but they never did any harm due to Avast! spotting them. Norton probably does it's job if it's on, but it's a lot heavier than, say, AVG or Avast!. So the actual advantage in using one of those as real time protection software is that their resource fingerprint is so small that it doesn't really slow down startup and does even less while running.
Also remember that virus developers are always at least one step ahead of anti-virus developers, so definitions files don't always protect from the latest of the latest.
Ok, if you are that paranoid about it, then don't use the internet and then you will never take the chance of getting a virus. I take it that in the past, someone got your password from a virus on your system. I understand your fear and I am paranoid a lot too.
I wouldn't call it paranoia, rather... consciousness. There's always a risk in Internets, but not using it isn't really an option, so it's all about risk management, right?
And, to me, logic says that it's more likely for a norton-targetting virus to appear than an Avast! -targetting virus, solely based on numbers. There's a lot more Norton users than Avast! users so it's better ground for virus programmers to target them.
F-Secure is a good solid product, I always liked it better than Norton, but it had the same basic issue - it's a mammoth and if you want to use real time protection, the startup times get rather long - especially on a computer with limited capabilities.
One thing to remember is if you get links in IM or emails, don't click them unless you trust them and also google the url, and the meta tag description of that website in the search results page might tell you if it has a virus. If not, google the link and type "virus" to see if it will say virus in the meta tag. Also, look at the link carefully (the root part). If someone sends you an exe file in emails or IM, never download it. You also need to be careful about downloading zip files from IM or email unless you know what is in the file. Another tip is have a your pop-up blocker always on and at medium. Otherwise if set too high, it will block necessary pop-ups, like download pop-up boxes in File Planet, for example. Try not to ever click ads on websites. Also note that sometimes when you try to go to a website, you will see a website appear like it is scanning your computer for viruses after a message saying "attention, your computer may be infected". This is actually malware masquerading as anti-malware. Close the window immediately and scan your computer with your anti-malware programs. Some malware can actually find and install other malware without you knowing.
Or, use Sandboxie and/or real-time protection anti-virus/malware/spyware program. Containing the possible infections is just as effective as simply avoiding them, and involves a lot less effort.
If I notice my pc slowing down more than usual, I will usually run a malware check with the anti-malware programs. I also go into program files in C drive to see if any new unknown folders are there from recent programs installing themselves without my knowledge. I also will sometimes go to add/remove programs to see if anything changed. I also go into task manager to see if odd processes are present. There are many tricks and things you can do to maximize the safety and speed of your pc.
If my computer slows down for some reason, I generally check if there's a memory leak or hang-up on some process first. Then I check if the system HD needs a defrag, then other HD's. I generally run a malware check routinely once a month or so, and usually come up with a few non-critical tracking cookies so it isn't really the first thing I look for.
If startup is slow, checking from msconfig if some sneaky stuff has managed to get in there (realplayer, quicktime, java update scheduler and adobe reader for example have an annoying habit of returning there occasionally, though they don't slow things down that much). Turning off some completely unnecessary services tends to speed things up as well, but that kidna requires knowledge of what they are and what they do in order to keep important things working.
The thing is... I don't generally have slowdowns. Occasionally, a program crashes or hangs, but my system is very stable as a whole. I don't really remember when I last time needed to commence a hard boot. :)
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The BIOS is very unlikely to have a major impact on any speed. RAM is a lot faster than hard disk I/O so also doesn't matter much for startup speed. It's pretty much I/O bound.