Deviance's Tips to help keep your Windows PC fast and secure.
#16
Posted 05 June 2009 - 09:28 PM
Avast is bad about picking up false positives. I personally use NOD32 (it's not free), and it seems to be really good to me.
Some more advice from me...
1. If you're computers runs slowly, go to Start->Run (or win+r) and type in msconfig, then go over to the Startup Tab. Go through the list here and start deselecting things you don't need. Frequent items that slow down computers are adobe reader, quicktime, real player, and things like that. Most of these programs aren't needed on startup. Sure, they'll make it faster when you start up adobe reader, but they slow everything else down. However, don't deselect things if you don't know what you're doing! If you don't know what something is in startup, google it and do research!
2. If your browser is running slowly (or sometimes having problems with websites), try removing useless toolbars like Google and Yahoo toolbars. These are useless things which slow down your browser. Some things (like Blackboard) have problems if your browser has these toolbars as well, and since most browsers have their own search bar, these toolbars are pretty useless anyway. Also, if you have mywebsearch toolbar, remove it! It's spyware!
3. For slower computers, what you can try doing is having an antivirus program like AVG, but disabled the automated scan. Sure, Windows will probably complain, but as long as you run manual scans every so often and are smart, you'll probably be safe. I wouldn't recommend this to the average person, so make sure you're secure first!
#17
Posted 06 June 2009 - 06:37 AM
Yeah, it does. Sadly, I never got it to work with either Slashdot or GMail. And it doesn't have the option to just block specific script within a domain. But, hey, I'm using the version that comes with Kubuntu Hardy, so.....
#18
Posted 06 June 2009 - 10:12 AM
#19
Posted 06 June 2009 - 06:33 PM
#20
Posted 06 June 2009 - 09:51 PM
#21
Posted 07 June 2009 - 08:18 AM
Honestly, Javascript isn't that dangerous. It's really only a threat to IE, plus Adblock takes care of malicious scripts. If you turn JS off, you're missing out on a ton of useful features. My older brother works with it all the time and most of the websites he works on don't even work without Javascript. (or at least CSS, which doesn't work on IE)
If CSS didn't work in IE, PureZC would be black-on-white text without any special layouts other than tables, links would be blue, and visited links would be purple. It would look like a webpage from 1996.
#22
Posted 07 June 2009 - 10:37 AM
Well, you always want to keep adobe reader, but I agree... for most stuff, adobe reader is too bloated (and unstable) to use. Still, most alternatives don't support typing in PDF forms very well, and, as far as I know, none support it as well as adobe reader, unfortunately.
- Uh...have you actually tried them, or are you going by hearsay? At any rate, I never had any trouble at all typing in PDF forms with Foxit Reader, so if there are features it doesn't support, I've never run across them.
- Speaking of which: how often, honestly, do you think the average person runs across a PDF form they need to fill in, anyway? I can only speak for myself, of course, but I hardly expect that advanced PDF form support is a huge consideration for most of the people reading this.
Adblock takes care of malicious scripts.
#23
Posted 07 June 2009 - 11:09 AM
- Uh...have you actually tried them, or are you going by hearsay? At any rate, I never had any trouble at all typing in PDF forms with Foxit Reader, so if there are features it doesn't support, I've never run across them.
- Speaking of which: how often, honestly, do you think the average person runs across a PDF form they need to fill in, anyway? I can only speak for myself, of course, but I hardly expect that advanced PDF form support is a huge consideration for most of the people reading this.
For the first part, a little bit of both, but I have to admit that I haven't used any alternatives recently. I remember a tried Foxit when it first came out, and it only supported forms partially. But, I've heard that a lot of alternatives still don't support forms that well outside of the basic stuff, but I haven't gone around to test that.
As far as the average person running across them, my college campus uses them all of the time. A lot of forms they ask for (like scholarship forms and the like) have to be filled out on the computer and printed. All of my study abroad forms had to be typed.
#24
Posted 16 July 2009 - 04:31 AM
Use a restricted account. All modern OS offer at least two types of account: Administrator and user. All surfing, mailing, chatting, downloading etc. should only be done with user accounts. Admin accounts are for system maintenance and installing new software (and games that won't run otherwise). It's not completely foolproof but it's a big step forward.
For PDF, I use Foxit Reader. It has its quirks but it's a hell of a lot faster and smaller than Acrobat. For a recent lecture, the professor gave us a PDF of about 50 powerpoint slides stuffed full of images (>50MB size). Acrobat froze after a minute of trying to open it on my laptop every time. Foxit didn't. Linux users of course have programs like evince.
All windows power users should try Process Explorer and Autoruns from sysinternals. The first shows what's currently running and the second what automatically starts on your computer. About 99% of autorun programs are unnecessary and just slow your computer down in my opinion. They are the ones to look at if you have to wait for hours between logging on and being able to actually do something on your computer. A word of warning though: Only use these programs if you know what you're doing. You can seriously muck up things otherwise.
Edited by Koopa, 16 July 2009 - 04:38 AM.
#25
Posted 16 July 2009 - 09:45 AM
#27
Posted 19 July 2009 - 01:59 PM
#28
Posted 03 January 2010 - 01:05 PM
#29
Posted 03 January 2010 - 05:59 PM
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