Archive by Author
How to Make the Switch to Linux
Right out of the gate, let me make a disclaimer here. This is NOT an advertisement nor am I “recruiting” Linux users. Indeed, if you’re satisfied with Windows, or any other “non-Linux OS”, and have absolutely no reason to switch . . . fine. You’re likely better off sticking with what you’re comfortable with. However [...]
Full StoryMicrosoft Fix It Utility CAN Mislead
This is NOT the typical Microsoft bashing rant, nor is it intended to be. Indeed, the 500 pound gorilla from Redmond, for all its faults and flaws, was instrumental in developing the tech revolution during the 70′s, 80′s, and early 90′s. That history has helped to give Microsoft the stellar rep that it currently enjoys [...]
Full StoryLink Safety Checkers
There are resources available that will give indications about a link’s safety, but not all link safety guides are based on the same criteria, and if any one of them is treated without knowing how it works, what criteria it uses, and what its ratings mean, you are likely to misinterpret the results. IOW, when [...]
Full StoryMaxMySpeed an Annoying Scareware TV Ad
MaxMySpeed.com, a classic scareware bogus registry cleaner, has so far escaped the comparison to Auslogics and CCleaner here on TechJaws. Although it has been rated red on WOT as it should be, and is listed here, their TV commercials lately here in Arizona have been particularly frequent and annoying to me. So much so that [...]
Full StoryParetologic feigns innocence, but evidence shows otherwise
A recent post on the WOT forum by a WOT community member details how this person received a PM from a ParetoLogic person questioning why a comment was made that ParetoLogic produces rogues: The flavor of the PM from the ParetoLogic person was innocence. Additionally, the ParetoLogic person posted this: “I found it difficult to [...]
Full StoryTrophy in the Rogue Hall of Shame
Most rogues do their dirty work by using an overwhelming number of detections (some, and maybe most, are false positives) to scare a novice into purchasing the rogue to remove what was either not there in the first place, or is trivial (like a tracking cookie or a missing help file). Some like the one [...]
Full StoryUniblue Offering Rogue Software?
An email from Uniblue to a colleague offering payment for placing a Uniblue link on his site has prompted me to come out of lurk mode and resurrect the Uniblue discussion. This has been discussed before . . . if you do a search on “Uniblue” here on WOT, you’ll get 8 hits. Uniblue has [...]
Full StoryThe Queen of Conservatives
It’s healthy now and then to take a look at the lunatic fringe…sometimes it even provides some comic relief. With that I’d like to introduce the latest book by Ann Coulter: “Guilty”. Don’t get me wrong…I’m a conservative myself, but Coulter is WAYYYYY out there…”ultra-conservative”, or “far-right”, or even the “lunatic fringe” (though I suspect [...]
Full StoryThe Virtues of Firefox Session Restore
There are many add-ons to help you when you need to rush through a Firefox browsing session and see something you want to read, but don’t have the time to do so. There is the add-on “Wired Marker” (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6219) that let’s you mark up web pages and keeps a list of those web pages with [...]
Full StoryVirtues of Cloning and Imaging
First, to make this article understandable, I’ll need to define some terms. The terms “cloning”, “imaging”, and “backing up” have become so bastardized and arbitrary that to have any meaning they need to be defined for the content of the article. Otherwise, each person will take those terms to mean what a piece of software [...]
Full StorySocial Network Scams and Fakes
The popularity of sites such as Facebook and MySpace have spawned malicious imitators. The main tactic they use to peddle their scams is “social engineering”. Wikipedia has a good definition: “Social engineering is the act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the [...]
Full StoryReal Time Scanning Versus On Demand Scanning
Unless a security app runs real time scans, in other words, when data is coming into the computer (like when you’re browsing, or when you play a CD, or open an email and such) . . . you really don’t need to have it running at start up. Since it’s not protecting you in real [...]
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