why do you insist on throwing your money at this rubbish when if you'd used the much cheaper and far more efficient and capable Taw-Kare programme, you'd have no computer issues at all, and instead of a rubbish coaster you'd have a free picture of your Mullah by your monitor.

seriously, why on earth did you pay for this pile of beta utilities? A combination of Kaspersky, Zone Alarm Pro, Diskeeper and CCleaner does the job far better and will keep your pc running with nary a problem. Oh why do I waste my breath, you'll still be signing up for Vista too without listening to a word I say and end up forking out half your wages to be a de facto thin client on Microsoft.net.

And stop using Internet Exploder! it's the surest way to get trojans and spyware and lots of other awfulness.

What exactly is Taw-Kare programme?

I have tried and still own Kaspersky, but it gaveme nothing but trouble. kept freezing my computer. I llike Norton but don't like the price for Multi lisenses. I still own Diskeeper 8, but it too gave me problems. As to Zone Alarm Pro, I have heard there are several problems with it and other internet sites.

On teh IE front, I use it because juno requires it to operate. I am in the midst of a debate of getting DSL, and if I do, I can switch to the free version of Juno for the purposes of e-mail only.

there's nothing wrong with any of these programmes - Kapsersky is the best anti-virus available (except maybe for F-Prot or BitDefender) Norton is worse than a virus itself, it's murder to get rid of and the one time you need it to work, it doesn't. ZA Pro is a superb firewall, except maybe for BlackICE. if there's a problem with websites then it's probably because those sites are riddled with malware and trojans and hacked ActiveX controls and dodgy Java applets and nasty hackers trying to use your pc as a zombie mail server, don't you think? I'd say the problems more with your computer than any of these programmes, and you should really be on Diskeeper 9+ by now.

the Taw-Kare programme is where you send me Hersheys and/or Reese's Golden Cups and Chesterfields and/or Lucky Strikes and/or American Spirits and/or Sweet Aftons and I send you quality software products and sound computer advice and keep your computer alive remotely, fixing all the stuff you do wrong. I'm getting very low on Chesterfield's and the Hershey bars ran out a fortnight ago. I've got a firdge full of Golden Cups though and 600 Luckies in stock.

I have this horrible feeling that if I ever saw your pc configuration my blood pressure would climb very rapidly.

LMAO

This computer, is a laptop, and runs ok for the most part. I was using MS firewal built in and AVG free for the antivirus. I just wanted a better on, and don't mind paying for it, IF it works. The bigger problem is on the desk top one. Recently, the IE load page changed from the Juno one to a Compaq-AOL one. I didn't do it, and when I change it to any other, hit apply and close, I open IE again an the AOL one is back. I can't get rid of it. I tried Spybot, it finds nothing, my only recourse, and I hate doing it, is reformat and factory restore. It means about 3 hours work to back up data, format, restoe and then put all the programs back on again. I tried a sytem restore, but I had deleted a couple games and the restores wouln't work.

I had some difficulty with home page being changed and various irritating pop-ups and such...till I installed webroot spysweeper.
It's not even registered, but it worked!

Your ears ringing? I just found my copy of it. I though I had lost it myself. I am running it now, and it noted the page change too and is correcting it.

@FD: Juno supports FireFox broswer

Well, you could cut down on your vulnerabilities at least.

honestly you really will never learn. I haven't HAD to reformat my pc for over 2 years (although I do it once a year faithfully out of habit) If you had a PROPER antivirus and PROPER antispyware and PROPER firewall and stopped using Internet Exploder and just did what I said, your computer would be as safe as the Bank of Tawakalnistan.

MS firewall = no firewall, anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together can get through that like it wasn't there. And it doesn't stop any spyware or trojans. it's a joke.

all this pain you put yourself through, and it could all be avoided so easily. Even my wireless (forced on me by Mrs Taw) is WPA/WEP/PSK secured. The borders of Tawakalnistan are constantly secured and no evil little scrotes from Milwaukee or Yang-Balla-Bing-Bong are getting in.

Grisoft AVG, ZoneAlarm, Spybot S&D, regular de-fragging and disk cleanup, and the occasional use of the 15-day trial of Sunbelt Software's Counterspy app. Haven't had an issue on this machine since I "upgraded" to SP2 (then reverted to SP1 two days later when SP2 caused half my hardware to stop working properly even with the latest drivers).

*edit* Oh, and Firefox. IE is evil incarnate; it will kill your system just as surely as if you dumped a bucket of raw sewage over the motherboard.

Edited by - NukeIt on 8/19/2006 10:11:25 AM

@Taw...well, not all of us wage wars you know.

Well, the desktop just bit the dust. I am now having to fight it to get System recovery to work. The mouse and keyboard quit working

Reformating under way

Edited by - Finalday on 8/19/2006 11:31:07 AM

no doubt we'll see your IP address listed on AVERT as one of the prime sources of spam and irc-bots, now that it's obviously been taken over by dorty hackers and all the spyware coders. I'm going to put you some useful stuff in the post, it's painful to watch you suffering like this. Stop using that Norton rubbish, I'll make sure you have a decent antivirus and firewall, that actually work!

And use a proper browser in future! if Internet Exploder was any good, why are Micro$oft patching it on an almost daily basis? In fact, why don't you go out and buy a Mac, then you'll have no problems at all (unless you touch it )

Haven't you ever wondered why you have so many problems and that your bank card got hacked? that's 'cos your PC is full of spyware keyloggers and data miners and info harvesters. All these events are not unconnected, you know. Seriously, you've got to beef up your security big-time. Don't worry though, your Mullah of Munificence will come to your assistance - again.

Edited by - Tawakalna Qubt-ut Allah on 8/19/2006 12:59:06 PM

The bank card thing happened, because my old bank sent a card in the mail that never reachedme, it went to California instead. Another problem now with reformating. 1st try didn't get rid of all the programs, a second pass did, alond with my replacement modem driver. Took a bit to find the disk. I am in the midst of trying to reinstall it. Hopefully all this will help get the puter back to normal.

This is the bad part about reformating, doing it too little you forget HOW to do it.

It's so much fun reloading all programs.

Edited by - Finalday on 8/19/2006 1:16:03 PM



Edited by - Finalday on 8/19/2006 1:56:33 PM

hang on. if you reformat you completely erase all the old data structures and replace them with new (fresh) ones, so ergo you can't have reformatted at all? did you just do a repair install? you're use one of those silly "restore" discs aren't you? <sheesh> how many times do i have to tell you, get a proper oem copy of XP and only use those restore discs for driver installs. All you'll do is just put the pc back into it's old insecure state.

the least you could do is delete the old partition and put a new one on.

fun? well I suppose it'll teach you a lesson, and it's good experience. funny how I never have to do it. is it? that's because I avoid the problems in the first place, having learnt from painful experience.

and you'd better be using NTFS! if I find out you're doing a Wabbit and still using FAT......

seriously FD, just forget Windows Firewall, it's about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Anything, even your Norton rubbish, is better than that (actually Norton Firewall is a lot better than Windows Firewall, it's just the performance hits Norton causes that make it so lamentable, and all that Common Client cr*p that throws itself all over the registry.)

And close all your shares off. And no p2p, it's too dangerous for you. And since you're on dial-up, you're going to struggle to get regular Windows Updates, so please install some anti-spyware software, or you'll be in trouble again really quickly.

and if you'd backed up with a disc image programme like Norton Ghost, you could have restored everything in 20 minutes. The Hare does it 5 times a day. See, not everything Symantec do is pooh, Ghost is brilliant, Windoctor's good, and I use PC Anywhere all the time.