BROWSERS

Stay informed - visit Sophos and stay up to date.

If you are using a paid AVG anti virus protection they include a web site advisor, I recommend learning what this little add-on is all about. A free site advisor is available from McAfee for both Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox browsers. Click here for McAfee's Site Advisor's site.

Since you are using a Microsoft Windows Operating System your computer comes with the Microsoft Internet Explorer Browser already installed and as default. This is used for surfing the internet and to obtain the necessary Microsoft Operating System software updates.

The resources on this page will open up in a new browser window or in a PDF format.

There are several other browsers available for the Windows Operating System, such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. Each offers more features and functions and is more secure than Internet Explorer. Firefox and Opera also allow you the user to customize the appearance and features, than the Internet Explorer. I personally recommend the Mozilla Firefox 3.5 browser, Chrome, Opera or Safari browsers which are free, over using Internet Explorer. Firefox offers 145,495,752 add-on's to enhance your browsing experience. Why Firefox?

If you choose to use Firefox visit this page to see some of the Add-On's you can install, my favorite is Gutil.

If you decide to use the Internet Explorer browser, there are several tasks you the user need to perform to reduce the clutter of temporary files, and to free up hard drive space on your computer. For instructions on how to perform these tasks
visit here for the documentation.

Microsoft in its infinite wisdom decided to change the way we view things on the internet with the release of Internet Explorer 8. To say the least it’s a resource hog, if you’re running a Norton AV program expect problems every time you launch your browser, until you can address the issue and locate the correct fix. Microsoft IE8 still is non compatible with over a half million websites and Microsoft wants web designers to abandon coding standards and write sites for IE8. I would rather write sites for other browsers than IE.

I’m not a fan of Microsoft; while they made the solution (Windows) they also create the problems with much vulnerability. Reading these messages which are a weekly occurrence “A serious flaw has been found in Windows systems, leaving unsuspecting user’s potentially wide open to drive-by downloads” and as usual there is no patch yet from Microsoft. Such as this malware attack first noted on July 3, 2009. Today July 28, 2009 Microsoft released 2 out of cycle critical updates for Internet Explorer and C++, the program used to write the IE program to close critical flaws. With this patch Internet Explorer now has 15 Critical vulnerabilities, Firefox 4, Opera 5, for Firefox and Opera, 2 of these flaws are awaiting patches from the flaws creator Adobe since December 2008.

Google's Leftside Navigation Bar

Option 1: For thoose of you who perfer iGoogle for your homepage and hate they way Google has forced the leftside navigation bar on you, I have found the solution to your ails. It requires that you use the Firefox browser with the add-on AdBlock plus. You will need to create a new filter for your AdBlock plus and add this filter string in bold: google.com#TD(class=leftborder) now refresh your browser.
I would like to give thanks to Gavin at Brain Dump for this solution.

Option 2: A second solution for Firefox users can be this Add-on found here Most Excellent!

How Does Spyware, Malware or Crapware Get on My Computer?

In a dozen years or so of working on home and business computers I get asked how and why people create computer garbage to infect me?

Today the good folks at the How to Geek published the best article I have ever read regarding this subject. I ask that all of you who read this spend 10 - 15 minutes reading this article. I commend the How to Geek for publishing this exceptional article.

For instructions and tools to remove this garbage visit my Computer Security page

Cookies

Like most humans I love cookies, usually with milk, for website administrators, owners and PC users cookies are something else entirely. A computer cookie is a small text file which contains a unique ID tag, placed on your computer by a website. The website saves a complimentary file with a matching ID tag. In this file various information can be stored, from pages visited on the site, to information voluntarily given to the site. When you revisit the site days or weeks later, the site can recognize you by matching the cookie on your computer with the counterpart in its database.

There are two types of computer cookies: temporary and permanent. Temporary cookies, also called session cookies, are stored temporarily in your browser's memory and are deleted as soon as you end the session by closing the browser. Permanent cookies, also called persistent cookies, are stored permanently on your computer's hard drive and, if deleted, will be recreated the next time you visit the sites that placed them there. By using Firefox, I delete all cookies once I close my browser out completely - nice touch.

Cookie technology addressed the need to keep track of information entered at a site so that if you submitted a registration form for example, the site could associate that information with you as you traveled through the site's pages. Otherwise, every time you clicked on a different page in the site, establishing a new connection, the site would lose the information in reference to you, forcing you to re-enter it.

Flash Cookies

Flash cookies are a new way of tracing your movement and storing a lot more information about you than with normal cookies. One major disadvantage of flash cookies is that you can’t locate them in your browser, your computer does not even know they exist. They are not shown in the list of cookies that you can see when you take a look at the cookies that are currently saved in your web browser. Normal HTTP cookies can’t save more than 4 Kilobyte of data while Flash cookies can save up to 100 Kilobyte. If you want to try out how they work you could do the following.

Do Flash Cookies pose an imminent security risk? Almost certainly not. On the other hand, it seems reasonable to view any application that stores data or tracks online behavior without a user's knowledge or permission as an implicit security risk. And Flash Cookies certainly match this description. Worse still, quite a few sites use Flash Cookies even when they don't load any visible Flash content. Instead, they simply load a tiny, invisible Flash module on each page a user visits. These may or may not serve a useful purpose. The problem is that users don't see them load, and they don't have any easy way to manage or delete them once they are loaded.

Go to Youtube, increase or decrease the volume of the videos and delete all cookies afterwards. You will notice that the volume level is still at the same level when you close your browser and open it again. This is done with so called Local Shared Objects, better known as Flash cookies. The main question is of course how a computer can be checked for Flash cookies and how it would be possible to delete those cookies again.

How to remove Flash Cookies is a bit tricky, you'll need to go here to the Adobe Flash Player Settings website. All the data you will see here is contained within your PC, see image below.

At the Adobe website select the folder on the far right of your display or select from the Settings Manager on the left side of the page.

The so called Settings Manager can be accessed from the Adobe website but is running locally on your computer. The Website Storage Settings display all Flash cookies that are currently saved on your computer. You can delete flash cookies from individual sites or all at once. It is also possible to increase or decrease the Kilobyte size of all information that are stored on your computer.

Adobe does not have access to the settings that you see in the Settings Manager or to personal information on your computer.

No Flash Cookies will be saved if you go into Global Storage Settings and disable the option “Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer”. 73 websites did store Flash cookies on my computer and I decided to delete all of them and disable the feature to be on the safe site. Did you know about Flash cookies ? How many did you find on your pc ?

Firefox users - Flashblock is one of my favorite Firefox extensions. When it's active, it keeps Flash modules from loading; instead, you see clickable icons that allow you to load Flash content on a case-by-case basis. Flashblock keeps Flash out of the way when you don't want it but makes it easy to load Flash content that serves a legitimate purpose.

How effective is Flashblock against Flash Cookies? Quite a few people who use the Adobe Flash Settings Manager report finding dozens of Flash Cookies on their systems.

I found two on my system. Both loaded on sites where I deliberately allowed Flash content to load after Flashblock had flagged it.

Another Firefox security extension does what Adobe refuses to do: Give desktop users direct, local control of their Flash Cookie settings. Among other features, the BetterPrivacy extension provides detailed information about every Flash Cookie stored on a user's system, can auto-wipe downloaded Flash Cookies on startup or shutdown, and supports whitelistng objects that users want to keep around.

Privacy issues aside, however, it is simply impossible to practice sound desktop computer security without two key ingredients: knowledge and control. And that is why Flashblock, BetterPrivacy, and so many other Firefox extensions are such a boon for security-conscious Web users

Keep yourself safe, abandon IE7 or IE8 except for Microsoft updates and use Firefox by Mozilla or any other browser mentioned on this page.

If you are using Firefox, visit here for documentation on how to remove temporary internet files or clearing your private data.

For Opera users visit here for documentation on clearing your temporary internet files and private data.

Decide to use the Safari browser from Apple, documentation is here.

A Healthy Computer

Is up to date with all it's software updates, visit these links below for updates and to see how vulnerable your PC is. If you have no Anti-Virus program running I highly recommend you obtain AVG 9.0 free version.

• Microsoft Windows Update
• Secunia Vulnerability Scanner
• AVG 9.0 Free Anti Virus
• How to Remove a Computer Virus

If you do not run a anti virus program what's the use of running a personal computer.

Require AVG for multiple computers more than 3 (volume licensing) or servers contact us for details and pricing.