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computer help

Firefox is slow at the best of times, I use Google Chrome for most things and Brave for others.

Re: screen going blank, check your power setting a re-install or Widows update may have cut the time down on when to put the screen to sleep
 
Just a bit of a heads up. An 'exploit' has been discovered that bypasses Windows secure boot, (optional in W10 and required in W11), and can install malware before Windows even starts up. The exploit is unlikely to hit the average computer user, because it needs physical access or admin access to the computer. However, the fix developed by Microsoft is a bit draconian. The fix is being rolled out, firstly this month but very difficult to enable, so that only likely to be done by company IT departments who can deal with the ramifications. Secondly in July, easier to enable but still needs computer 'nerds' to do it, But in the first quarter of 2024 all machines will have it enabled as part of the update system. It won't affect the computer, which will behave normally, but any other bootable media will fail to work any more. This includes Windows install media like DVDs and USB drives created from Microsoft's downloadable ISO files, full system backups, and the recovery media sold with PCs or bought on auction sites for those who build their own computers. Backups made after the fix will be fine, as should be later ISO files.

You are backing up regularly ?

Andrew.
 
Brummie a long time ago said:
Just a bit of a heads up. An 'exploit' has been discovered that bypasses Windows secure boot, (optional in W10 and required in W11), and can install malware before Windows even starts up. The exploit is unlikely to hit the average computer user, because it needs physical access or admin access to the computer. However, the fix developed by Microsoft is a bit draconian. The fix is being rolled out, firstly this month but very difficult to enable, so that only likely to be done by company IT departments who can deal with the ramifications. Secondly in July, easier to enable but still needs computer 'nerds' to do it, But in the first quarter of 2024 all machines will have it enabled as part of the update system. It won't affect the computer, which will behave normally, but any other bootable media will fail to work any more. This includes Windows install media like DVDs and USB drives created from Microsoft's downloadable ISO files, full system backups, and the recovery media sold with PCs or bought on auction sites for those who build their own computers. Backups made after the fix will be fine, as should be later ISO files.

You are backing up regularly ?

Andrew.
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Thanks for the heads up, not sure what we can do about it! Seems like moving target.
 
mikejee said:
Sorry Andrew, but being not that technically minded, does that mean that anything I have saved to an external drive will not be accessible?
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Richard Dye said:
Thanks for the heads up, not sure what we can do about it! Seems like moving target.
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Data, (your stuff on your external drive) that is saved will be fine, and that will be what most people will consider a backup. What will be affected is a full backup. This type of backup is used to restore a computer from 'ground zero', in other words a complete restore of Windows, plus data, the whole shebang, which involves starting up the computer from the backup of course. You might do this for convenience if your hard drive failed, to get you back to where you were, (although it is not the best method). Also affected is something like a reinstall of Windows from a DVD that may have been provided when the computer was purchased. It won't work.
It is the process that your computer goes through from switch on until Windows starts up that has been compromised. This period is called boot up, or the boot process. Microsoft developed a secure method of doing this, so that bad stuff couldn't happen in this vulnerable time.

Except now it can.

It is not the compromise that you should worry about, it is specialised and needs physical access. It is more the knock on effect of the fix, which alters the boot process, and renders earlier bootable media non functional. I am sure Microsoft will address this in a very public way as things are developed. However, if Microsoft say "jump", then the response needs to be "how high" for this one.

On a normally functioning W10 or W11 computer you won't see a difference from before to after the update.

(Extra star for having an external drive).

Andrew.
 
Have I got a rogue virus on my laptop or does this happen to all our members? Every time I come to the Birmingham History Forum, I get a pop up privacy & transparency notice. After initially pressing the "continue with recommended cookies" button when it first appeared, I found that after a few times there were over 40 ticked boxes for various companies I'd never heard of. I've since un-ticked them but, now, even when pressing the "manage settings" button I get 9 boxes to un-tick. Is it just me?
 
Banjo said:
Have I got a rogue virus on my laptop or does this happen to all our members? Every time I come to the Birmingham History Forum, I get a pop up privacy & transparency notice. After initially pressing the "continue with recommended cookies" button when it first appeared, I found that after a few times there were over 40 ticked boxes for various companies I'd never heard of. I've since un-ticked them but, now, even when pressing the "manage settings" button I get 9 boxes to un-tick. Is it just me?
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I don't think it is just you. I have a similar, but not identical experience. I sometimes get the boxes to untick, and having done so, there is a 'save settings' button that I click. All is then fine, until some random time later, when I have to do it again. This can be a few days later. I don't believe it is really random, something will be triggering it, maybe just not something on my computer. I use several different devices, and it happens on all of them at different times. Only annoying at the moment, and the amazing site content makes the annoyance short lived.
I have to be honest, the thought of pressing a "continue with recommended cookies" button on any website makes me twitch a little bit. Recommended by who and to what purpose ? I would prefer a subscription option that dumps cookies and adverts.
Andrew.
 
Brummie a long time ago said:
I don't think it is just you. I have a similar, but not identical experience. I sometimes get the boxes to untick, and having done so, there is a 'save settings' button that I click. All is then fine, until some random time later, when I have to do it again. This can be a few days later. I don't believe it is really random, something will be triggering it, maybe just not something on my computer. I use several different devices, and it happens on all of them at different times. Only annoying at the moment, and the amazing site content makes the annoyance short lived.
I have to be honest, the thought of pressing a "continue with recommended cookies" button on any website makes me twitch a little bit. Recommended by who and to what purpose ? I would prefer a subscription option that dumps cookies and adverts.
Andrew.
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I have pretty much the same experiences although not with BHF only. I try to get out of it, the only way I clear it is shut dow; and restart. A real pain but there are more and advertising and junk everywhere, also I am never sure what’s real and what’s fake. It seems there are no controls vis-à-vis the www!
 
Richard Dye said:
I have pretty much the same experiences although not with BHF only. I try to get out of it, the only way I clear it is shut dow; and restart. A real pain but there are more and advertising and junk everywhere, also I am never sure what’s real and what’s fake. It seems there are no controls vis-à-vis the www!
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https://duckduckgo.com
Richard, you might try the link above which is a no tracking browser as an alternative to Google, Edge, Bing and other search engines. You can try using ad blockers as well, but sometimes they interfere with the full functioning of some sites. At the moment I don't see any ads with this arrangement, but the bottom third of my screen is semi-transparent and to click on it I have to scroll up. (This area would normally carry the ads). You can swop between different browsers with Duck Duck Go which is useful as some sites can tell you are using an ad blocker.

Personally, I'd be happy if this wonderful site was a paid subscription, but would the subscriptions pay for the costs and would the posts drop off? At the moment there are a lot of cookies and the purpose of these is to track users and sell data. So if you look at natural cat food you can expect to be swamped with ads for the stuff. Because cookies will track you on your phone too it is difficult to avoid them while retaining functionality. Hope this is food for thought.
 
mw0njm. said:
i am naughty i use ghostly. and adblocker plus and cookie auto del so i dont get none of the aggro just the full forum page
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Ghostery. With luck the MODs will permit us talking of such things as I don't think they affect the revenue derived by the site. All these things appeal to web tweakers, some may suit your set up better than others. Microsoft 10/11 will always push Bing when it updates, but you can always turn the auto update off.
 
Stokkie said:
Personally, I'd be happy if this wonderful site was a paid subscription, but would the subscriptions pay for the costs and would the posts drop off?
Click to expand...

mw0njm. said:
i am naughty i use ghostly. and adblocker plus and cookie auto del so i dont get none of the aggro just the full forum page
Click to expand...

A technical forum I use has a fairly simple solution. There is an optional yearly subscription. Log on as a subscriber and the site is totally clean, no ads, no trackers, no intrusive videos. Not a subscriber ? Then exactly the same forum content, but 'well padded' with stuff.
On the other hand, people who are able will use similar solutions to Pete above. Those who can't, won't. I don't think there would be a lot of drop off in posts. Subscriptions would be for those who want to support the site, but don't want to do so at the expense of being data fodder.
Andrew.
 
Stokkie said:
https://duckduckgo.com
Richard, you might try the link above which is a no tracking browser as an alternative to Google, Edge, Bing and other search engines. You can try using ad blockers as well, but sometimes they interfere with the full functioning of some sites. At the moment I don't see any ads with this arrangement, but the bottom third of my screen is semi-transparent and to click on it I have to scroll up. (This area would normally carry the ads). You can swop between different browsers with Duck Duck Go which is useful as some sites can tell you are using an ad blocker.

Personally, I'd be happy if this wonderful site was a paid subscription, but would the subscriptions pay for the costs and would the posts drop off? At the moment there are a lot of cookies and the purpose of these is to track users and sell data. So if you look at natural cat food you can expect to be swamped with ads for the stuff. Because cookies will track you on your phone too it is difficult to avoid them while retaining functionality. Hope this is food for thought.
Click to expand...
I would agree to this site being paid, although I think you are correct about the number of subscribers and posts. We have one television that is ROKU that we had from our house on the coast, carry’s a lot of British tv and other stuff, mainly streaming. There used to be hardly any commercials on that now they run 4 or five at a time! I‘ll give DuckDuckGo a try and keep my fingers crossed! I would have thought all of the data had been collected by now, guess that’s another thing I don’t understand!
 
Brummie a long time ago said:
A technical forum I use has a fairly simple solution. There is an optional yearly subscription. Log on as a subscriber and the site is totally clean, no ads, no trackers, no intrusive videos. Not a subscriber ? Then exactly the same forum content, but 'well padded' with stuff.
On the other hand, people who are able will use similar solutions to Pete above. Those who can't, won't. I don't think there would be a lot of drop off in posts. Subscriptions would be for those who want to support the site, but don't want to do so at the expense of being data fodder.
Andrew.
Click to expand...
A premium subscription option would be useful to people who wish to use mobile phones to access the site too. But only the site owner and his tech can decide if they would want to do this. There would be a cost naturally, but the site I use incorporates the same xenforo platform we use here. It has many more users though. Derek
 
Richard Dye said:
I would agree to this site being paid, although I think you are correct about the number of subscribers and posts. We have one television that is ROKU that we had from our house on the coast, carry’s a lot of British tv and other stuff, mainly streaming. There used to be hardly any commercials on that now they run 4 or five at a time! I‘ll give DuckDuckGo a try and keep my fingers crossed! I would have thought all of the data had been collected by now, guess that’s another thing I don’t understand!
Click to expand...
Collection of data is dynamic Richard. Google a new thing or click on a link in an ad and your stream of ads will change. This can be helpful, Amazon push me books on Midlands canals! We have Alexa in the house (not used by me) and Apple's Siri listens sometimes!
 
Stokkie said:
A premium subscription option would be useful to people who wish to use mobile phones to access the site too. But only the site owner and his tech can decide if they would want to do this. There would be a cost naturally, but the site I use incorporates the same xenforo platform we use here. It has many more users though. Derek
Click to expand...
This is such a shame, the original concept of the World Wide Web was that it would be free of all this stuff! We are watching Doc Martin for the 4th or 5th time on a commercial station (I guess BBC sold the rights), we record all of the series and when the commercials come on we zoom right through! The original version on Nashville Public Television was a 30 min show, now a 1 hour show if you watch the commercials.
 
Stokkie said:
Collection of data is dynamic Richard. Google a new thing or click on a link in an ad and your stream of ads will change. This can be helpful, Amazon push me books on Midlands canals! We have Alexa in the house (not used by me) and Apple's Siri listens sometimes!
Click to expand...
It’s called gotcha time! I try to Google people because of what they do ( I had prostrate surgery a few years ago, oh my goodness) and do use Amazon much to my chagrin. The problem with Amazon is they don’t get it right. I bought my wife a cook book and stand from Amazon, three times they sent the wrong stand, we sent it back, thank goodness we were paying for prime. We watched a show on Amazon last night, Kate & William on Prime, it had commercials!
Sorry getting off track!
 
i had my pc running fine, just as i want it... when i got up this mornin ,windows had done a update installing a right load of cr*p on it.... i do wish they would leave well alone. i dont want xbox and games this is a working pc. i am going to spend wasted time now deleting the rubbish they down oaded.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rant over
 
That's a real pain. For everyone else this is what you can try. https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-turn-off-automatic-updates-in-windows-10 [Sometimes if a security update is important we all need to do the update, so keep an eye on this]

Also when we buy a new computer from the likes of Lenovo it comes with preloaded cr*pware including the instructions to contact the mothership and reinstall trackers. So look for instructions to wipe your new computer clean. https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-quickly-remove-bloatware-from-windows-11/
 
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Adblock plus at the moment has blocked over 70 adverts on this page alone. I don't worry about cookies, I use superantispyware (free progamme) to clear all the cookies off my system a couple of times a month, at worse they may slow your system down a bit.
 
I've been a member of this wonderful Forum for 10 years now but I'm afraid that this website (for me), has become a chore to get in to and I don't know how long I can continue doing what I've just had to do. I've just spent about 20 minutes unticking 227 legitimate interest boxes from a list of about 500 different companies before I could see today's updates. Until this Privacy & Transparency pop up started a few months ago I could access the Forum straight away. Now it's become a pain. I would willingly pay a subscription to get rid of this annoying pop up.:mad:
 
Banjo said:
I've been a member of this wonderful Forum for 10 years now but I'm afraid that this website (for me), has become a chore to get in to and I don't know how long I can continue doing what I've just had to do. I've just spent about 20 minutes unticking 227 legitimate interest boxes from a list of about 500 different companies before I could see today's updates. Until this Privacy & Transparency pop up started a few months ago I could access the Forum straight away. Now it's become a pain. I would willingly pay a subscription to get rid of this annoying pop up.:mad:
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Banjo, I can appreciate your frustration and would willingly pay. I have not however experienced what you have. I did on Saturday have to re login my three devices that I use to access the site.
Hang in there!
 
Banjo said:
I've been a member of this wonderful Forum for 10 years now but I'm afraid that this website (for me), has become a chore to get in to and I don't know how long I can continue doing what I've just had to do. I've just spent about 20 minutes unticking 227 legitimate interest boxes from a list of about 500 different companies before I could see today's updates. Until this Privacy & Transparency pop up started a few months ago I could access the Forum straight away. Now it's become a pain. I would willingly pay a subscription to get rid of this annoying pop up.:mad:
Click to expand...
Banjo, you could try a different browser and Adblocker plus or Ghostery. There are lots of browsers to try. You can use something like Duck Duck Go as your search engine. There is no need to use Bing or Chrome. You will have to tinker and reset from time to time and use a computer rather than a phone is my final tip.
 
Banjo said:
I've been a member of this wonderful Forum for 10 years now but I'm afraid that this website (for me), has become a chore to get in to and I don't know how long I can continue doing what I've just had to do. I've just spent about 20 minutes unticking 227 legitimate interest boxes from a list of about 500 different companies before I could see today's updates. Until this Privacy & Transparency pop up started a few months ago I could access the Forum straight away. Now it's become a pain. I would willingly pay a subscription to get rid of this annoying pop up.:mad:
Click to expand...
Banjo use firefox.with add blocker plus and ghostly extentions and have no aggro at all. i switch browsers at the click of a mouse from google to duckduck depending on what i am searching for. never use edge. best of luck
 
Thank you all for your comments. I'll try using another browser for our forum website to begin with and see how it pans out. I'll also look into ad blockers. I now see that there is a way around this annoying privacy & transparency pop up.
 
I have had the privacy and transparency pop up. If it's the same one (big white bottom half the screen?) then if I remember rightly it gives you option to accept recommended settings/cookies or set your own. I click on the latter which takes you to another page with a number of unchecked boxes and I leave them all unchecked and just click ok/accept.
 
Banjo said:
Thank you all for your comments. I'll try using another browser for our forum website to begin with and see how it pans out. I'll also look into ad blockers. I now see that there is a way around this annoying privacy & transparency pop up.
Click to expand...
use what i suggested and you should be happy..
:grinning:
 
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