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Post by GTCGreg on Jul 25, 2024 12:43:58 GMT
Iron, if you have access to your modem/wife router setting and feel comfortable with a bit of computer work, something to consider is setting up a PiHole. That is an ad blocker that works on your whole network. This is where you take a RaspberryPi or other low cost computer and install ad filtering software on it, and then set that up as a DNS server. This will run all you house's internet traffic through the ad filer and block the ads. How does that work on websites that detect an ad blocker and will not provide content unless you turn it off, such as YouTube? And can you turn it off on individual sites that do that as you can with Ad Block Plus? |
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Post by wvengineer on Jul 25, 2024 16:10:27 GMT
Most websites can't detect a PiHole.
A PiHole works by monitoring all the DNS requests on a network. Any downloads from known ad servers are blocked, so nothing is downloaded. Everything else is passes through without interruption. The website just displays a blank placeholder box in stead of the ad. However ads that are imbedded in other media are not blocked. SO it can't do anything about ads in YouTube videos since those are hosted by YOutube as well. You do have the ability to whitelist sites in the PiHole configuration program.
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Post by ironhold on Jul 25, 2024 16:23:05 GMT
Iron, if you have access to your modem/wife router setting and feel comfortable with a bit of computer work, something to consider is setting up a PiHole. That is an ad blocker that works on your whole network. This is where you take a RaspberryPi or other low cost computer and install ad filtering software on it, and then set that up as a DNS server. This will run all you house's internet traffic through the ad filer and block the ads. How does that work on websites that detect an ad blocker and will not provide content unless you turn it off, such as YouTube? And can you turn it off on individual sites that do that as you can with Ad Block Plus? It's all moot, as my main wi-fi is part of a package deal from my cable provider and so there's not a whole lot I can do to mess with anything without risking negative effects on my TV and landline phone service. |
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Post by ironhold on Sept 5, 2024 15:45:23 GMT
OK. Just got an e-mail ostensibly from Kaspersky US saying that they'll be partnering with some group called Ultra AV to double up on everything.
Anyone heard of this?
Is this legit?
Thanks.
edit -
Just checked, and it looks like Kaspersky US is transitioning its customers over.
...And right as my subscription is about to get renewed, so hopefully it's going to hold up.
Joy...
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Post by GTCGreg on Sept 5, 2024 16:40:41 GMT
OK. Just got an e-mail ostensibly from Kaspersky US saying that they'll be partnering with some group called Ultra AV to double up on everything. Anyone heard of this? Is this legit? Thanks. edit - Just checked, and it looks like Kaspersky US is transitioning its customers over. ...And right as my subscription is about to get renewed, so hopefully it's going to hold up. Joy... I never cared for Kaspersky. I've had really good results with Avast. Avast (free version) seems to give me all the protection I need without overdoing it. |
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Post by ironhold on Sept 5, 2024 17:44:18 GMT
OK. Just got an e-mail ostensibly from Kaspersky US saying that they'll be partnering with some group called Ultra AV to double up on everything. Anyone heard of this? Is this legit? Thanks. edit - Just checked, and it looks like Kaspersky US is transitioning its customers over. ...And right as my subscription is about to get renewed, so hopefully it's going to hold up. Joy... I never cared for Kaspersky. I've had really good results with Avast. Avast (free version) seems to give me all the protection I need without overdoing it. When we first got Avast several years ago, someone had told my parents that you couldn't trust any of the free anti-virals on the web and that you needed to have one that came in a box... never mind the fact that the first thing the boxed antivirals do is call home to look for updates. My parents got steered to Kaspersky, and it's not been worth the spike in my blood pressure to argue with them about it since. I already told them that the transition is going to happen and that they can expect a learning curve once it does. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Sept 5, 2024 23:35:51 GMT
I never cared for Kaspersky. I've had really good results with Avast. Avast (free version) seems to give me all the protection I need without overdoing it. When we first got Avast several years ago, someone had told my parents that you couldn't trust any of the free anti-virals on the web and that you needed to have one that came in a box... never mind the fact that the first thing the boxed antivirals do is call home to look for updates. My parents got steered to Kaspersky, and it's not been worth the spike in my blood pressure to argue with them about it since. I already told them that the transition is going to happen and that they can expect a learning curve once it does. And that's one of the things I really like about Avast. There really isn't much of a learning curve. It just sits in the background and does its thing. Every now and then it pops up a warning that what you are about to open (email, web page, file) you should think twice about. Once a year you have to re-register it but that's no big deal. And when it updates its virus database, it sometimes gives you a sales pitch about updating to the paid version, but you can just close that with a mouse click. You can do all the deep scan garbage but there's really no need to do that unless you suspect you picked up something by ignoring its warnings and opening things you shouldn't have. |
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Post by wvengineer on Sept 6, 2024 15:49:25 GMT
Kaspersky has been questionable for a while due to it's origins in Russia. There are a lot of questions about whether the Russian government has any sway with the company. The company denies any influence from the Russian government, but the questions linger. Right now, it is not allowed on any US government computer. I don't know if it is legit concern or just a knee jerk reaction to world events.
Sounds like Kaspersky is trying to move away from the Russian stigma.
I have been told by several professional system admins that Windows Defender has gotten very good over the last few years. At least with Win11, Microsoft Defender is on par with several of the free antivirus programs like AVG or Avast. My older sister is a network admin for Apple and she says recommends just using Defender on Win11.
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Post by wvengineer on Sept 6, 2024 15:58:14 GMT
Interesting. Apparently Kespersky is not allowed to sell its product in the US. www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyr7ex16p32oEither they are trying to get around trade restrictions by partnering with another company, or someone is trying to use their name to get sales. Eitherway, I would be very careful about such an e-mail. |
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Post by ironhold on Sept 6, 2024 17:56:39 GMT
Interesting. Apparently Kespersky is not allowed to sell its product in the US. www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyr7ex16p32oEither they are trying to get around trade restrictions by partnering with another company, or someone is trying to use their name to get sales. Eitherway, I would be very careful about such an e-mail. From the little I've seen, it's a legitimate thing; Kaspersky is shutting down their US division, and transferring their customers to a US-based partner. |
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Post by ironhold on Sept 19, 2024 15:45:07 GMT
OK.
Today was the first day to switch from Kaspersky to Ultra AV, as I was reminded of by a pop-up notification.
I downloaded Ultra AV as per the instructions, with it giving me the default 64 version... only for me to run the first scan and see Windows 32 files. That alone gave me a bit of a sinking feeling, but things seem to be working anyway.
Supposedly, all of my user account information was transferred from Kaspersky to Ultra AV. Sure enough, according to the control panel for Ultra AV, I'm logged in.
However, when I went to open up the Ultra AV website to check my account, I was informed that my login credentials were invalid. Kaspersky did have me update my credentials when I pulled my information up on *their* side, so it's possible that this is to blame. However, I did send a message off to Ultra AV support and will see what happens.
Right now I'm hoping that this is just a learning curve issue.
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Post by ironhold on Sept 20, 2024 14:38:40 GMT
Tech support finally responded.
I had a few follow-up questions to confirm, but the gist of it seems to be that:
1. I need to create a separate set of log-in credentials for Ultra AV since my Kaspersky log-in credentials didn't carry over.
2. The rest of my user information did carry over, and so my subscription will be automatically renewed as scheduled.
The Ultra AV quick scan is actually faster than Kaspersky's quick scan.
However, when I went to do their full scan I checked the box to tell it to do a "deep" scan as well. Cue me only being 30% complete after an hour and having to cancel the scan because I got called into work early.
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Post by the light works on Sept 20, 2024 19:02:50 GMT
Tech support finally responded. I had a few follow-up questions to confirm, but the gist of it seems to be that: 1. I need to create a separate set of log-in credentials for Ultra AV since my Kaspersky log-in credentials didn't carry over. 2. The rest of my user information did carry over, and so my subscription will be automatically renewed as scheduled. The Ultra AV quick scan is actually faster than Kaspersky's quick scan. However, when I went to do their full scan I checked the box to tell it to do a "deep" scan as well. Cue me only being 30% complete after an hour and having to cancel the scan because I got called into work early. I've typically called for full scans at bedtime. that way, it can be uninterrupted. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Sept 20, 2024 20:16:21 GMT
Tech support finally responded. I had a few follow-up questions to confirm, but the gist of it seems to be that: 1. I need to create a separate set of log-in credentials for Ultra AV since my Kaspersky log-in credentials didn't carry over. 2. The rest of my user information did carry over, and so my subscription will be automatically renewed as scheduled. The Ultra AV quick scan is actually faster than Kaspersky's quick scan. However, when I went to do their full scan I checked the box to tell it to do a "deep" scan as well. Cue me only being 30% complete after an hour and having to cancel the scan because I got called into work early. I've typically called for full scans at bedtime. that way, it can be uninterrupted. if your antivirus program has been active, and you haven’t had any problems, why do you need to do deep scans? I don’t think I’ve done a deep scan in 10 years. |
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Post by the light works on Sept 21, 2024 0:24:10 GMT
I've typically called for full scans at bedtime. that way, it can be uninterrupted. if your antivirus program has been active, and you haven’t had any problems, why do you need to do deep scans? I don’t think I’ve done a deep scan in 10 years. Norton does it when it gets bored. |
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Post by ironhold on Sept 21, 2024 20:48:30 GMT
I've typically called for full scans at bedtime. that way, it can be uninterrupted. if your antivirus program has been active, and you haven’t had any problems, why do you need to do deep scans? I don’t think I’ve done a deep scan in 10 years. Admittedly, it's a bit of paranoia. With Kaspersky, I'd run a full scan once a month just on the off chance that something got through the quick scan, which I'd run daily once I finished up with the system. I do what I can to go online safely, but I can't do very much when it comes to my dad, who isn't quite so careful as back when he was in the Army if something went wrong it was some poor tech specialist's problem. edit - He retired from the Army in 2000, but even after almost 25 years he's still got some bad behaviors he picked up while in ranks. My mom and I have had some difficulty trying to explain to him that he's a civilian now and can let a lot of that go. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Sept 21, 2024 22:34:56 GMT
if your antivirus program has been active, and you haven’t had any problems, why do you need to do deep scans? I don’t think I’ve done a deep scan in 10 years. Admittedly, it's a bit of paranoia. With Kaspersky, I'd run a full scan once a month just on the off chance that something got through the quick scan, which I'd run daily once I finished up with the system. I do what I can to go online safely, but I can't do very much when it comes to my dad, who isn't quite so careful as back when he was in the Army if something went wrong it was some poor tech specialist's problem. edit - He retired from the Army in 2000, but even after almost 25 years he's still got some bad behaviors he picked up while in ranks. My mom and I have had some difficulty trying to explain to him that he's a civilian now and can let a lot of that go. I don’t think ex career military ever consider themselves civilians. |
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Post by ironhold on Oct 2, 2024 22:16:52 GMT
OK.
We have an all-in-one TV, land-line phone, and wi-fi bundle with Charter Spectrum. The wi-fi allows us our choice of 2G and 5G, and for the most part we go for the 5G.
Last night, the 5G wi-fi started behaving erratically, to the point that the desktop computer (which is on the other side of the house from where the wi-fi router is set up) could no longer pick up the 5G and automatically downgraded me to the 2G. I figured that it was just a surge in traffic with people rushing the internet because of the debate and tying up Spectrum's 5G resources. But no, for about an hour and a half now I have trouble with the 5G lagging and dropping out again before it finally stabilizes.
I would say that it's this desktop, but then mom had issues on her tablet as well. Seems anything beyond our iPhones was having trouble getting a good 5G signal.
Is this something worth trying to get through to Spectrum tech support over? Dollars to donuts their first response will be "reset the router", but we've had other recent service issues in the past such as everything dropping out on us a few days ago (to the point that we lost TV and land-line, too).
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Post by the light works on Oct 3, 2024 0:05:17 GMT
OK. We have an all-in-one TV, land-line phone, and wi-fi bundle with Charter Spectrum. The wi-fi allows us our choice of 2G and 5G, and for the most part we go for the 5G. Last night, the 5G wi-fi started behaving erratically, to the point that the desktop computer (which is on the other side of the house from where the wi-fi router is set up) could no longer pick up the 5G and automatically downgraded me to the 2G. I figured that it was just a surge in traffic with people rushing the internet because of the debate and tying up Spectrum's 5G resources. But no, for about an hour and a half now I have trouble with the 5G lagging and dropping out again before it finally stabilizes. I would say that it's this desktop, but then mom had issues on her tablet as well. Seems anything beyond our iPhones was having trouble getting a good 5G signal. Is this something worth trying to get through to Spectrum tech support over? Dollars to donuts their first response will be "reset the router", but we've had other recent service issues in the past such as everything dropping out on us a few days ago (to the point that we lost TV and land-line, too). was going to say, first reboot the router. charter does have a bit of a reputation for random headaches, as far as I'm concerned. bu if it's a wifi connection that's dropping out, there's a good chance it's the router. |
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Post by wvengineer on Oct 3, 2024 12:30:31 GMT
OK. We have an all-in-one TV, land-line phone, and wi-fi bundle with Charter Spectrum. The wi-fi allows us our choice of 2G and 5G, and for the most part we go for the 5G. Last night, the 5G wi-fi started behaving erratically, to the point that the desktop computer (which is on the other side of the house from where the wi-fi router is set up) could no longer pick up the 5G and automatically downgraded me to the 2G. I figured that it was just a surge in traffic with people rushing the internet because of the debate and tying up Spectrum's 5G resources. But no, for about an hour and a half now I have trouble with the 5G lagging and dropping out again before it finally stabilizes. I would say that it's this desktop, but then mom had issues on her tablet as well. Seems anything beyond our iPhones was having trouble getting a good 5G signal. Is this something worth trying to get through to Spectrum tech support over? Dollars to donuts their first response will be "reset the router", but we've had other recent service issues in the past such as everything dropping out on us a few days ago (to the point that we lost TV and land-line, too). was going to say, first reboot the router. charter does have a bit of a reputation for random headaches, as far as I'm concerned. bu if it's a wifi connection that's dropping out, there's a good chance it's the router. I second shutting down the router for 5 minutes before powering back up. See if that clears things up. IF you still have trouble, then you may need to contact tech support. You may want to consider shifting things around a bit for what connects to the 2.4Ghz and the 5.2GHz. 2.4GHZ is slower, but has wider area coverage and the signal is generally more reliable. Use 2.4 GHz for everything that doesn't need high data speeds. Things like e-readers, TV streaming, cellphones, & tablets. 5GHz is faster, but has much less coverage area and is more sensitive to wifi network drops. Limit that to things that really need full speed connection like computers & laptops. If it doesn't need super high speed, move it to the 2.4Ghz network. It will be more reliable in general. |
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