Adobe flash player, still has extra stuff you don't want

February 6, 2016

I had to install windows 10 on a machine and unfortunately I still need the adobe player in order to watch some videos online. The problem is not the player itself, but the other programs they still add to the player as you can see here. Make sure to uncheck that middle column box before proceeding or you will add another antivirus trial software than just the player. It's amazing how this is still going on, but the truth is that it is. Although, flash is dying, some companies are still using them. Just be aware of this and you can skip one more trial software on your computer.

Taking screenshots of your screen or windows without other programs.

January 31, 2016

I have slowly been trying out more and more of the windows 10 features. Today I wanted to see if there was an easier way to take screenshots without installing any additional programs. The good news is that there still is a way, you just have to remember the shortcut keys. If you use this feature a lot it should be easy to remember since it's usually the same two keys. I've been using screenhunter which works well, but I always had to turn the program on before actually using it. So this is nice to have without any extra program. Just like making a pdf without any other programs except your already installed printer drivers. In any case I found this link that shows you step by step. So all the credit goes to them for posting this up. There are other programs you can also use as well if you really want a bit more control, but this should work for most basic screenshots which is what I do anyway. In short windows 10 does have a few more things you can do without adding any more programs which is nice. One more thing, don't forget to pin the snipping tool to the task bar and you should be all set! This way you don't have to keep searching for it, so it basically works just like my old program. Just make sure you rename the file when you save it or you will be over writing the old one as I just found out with my test. Now I just have then all going to the pictures screenshot folder where I can keep them organized instead of the desktop.

http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/capture-screenshots-windows-10

Checking questionable files online...

I just ran into this and I thought it would make a good post for today.
https://www.virustotal.com/

Firefox slowing down

I have started having problems with Firefox slowing down to a crawl. Then again my whole windows 10 started crawling for no reason. I haven't downloaded or installed anything so I started doing a few things here and there, but it looks like firefox is still in the doghouse.  At least the computer seems to have come back to life for now. I think I have actually turned most things off, but things still seem to get bogged down before I did anything. There's nothing more annoying than that specially when you haven't done anything yourself. I did find a large amount of tracking cookies and things like that which seem to really have bogged things down. So I need to look at those settings a lot closer now. I'm still testing Windows 10 a bit closer to see where things tend to go down hill even with the built-in antivirus which you really can't use much since now it's more hidden. It's there but you can see how that can make things longer to get done.

Splitting a large folder into smaller ones

October 20, 2015

I wanted to split a large folder that was just too big for transfer so I thought I try to split the files by selecting them the old fashion way and just add up to maybe a gig. Unfortunately the new Windows 10 doesn't show this at the bottom any more. It's on the right, but if I add a few more, then nothing shows and I have to keep clicking on the side bar to see how much I have. It keeps hiding the information which is very annoying. They have gone backwards in a lot of the simple stuff with Windows 10 and why is beyond me.

Here's a sample of a bunch of pictures I wanted to make more manageable. But that was just brutal so I went to my next plan.


Let the zipping progam do this. Hell, I like the simple stuff and all that backwards nonsense just to do a simple thing just drives me nuts. Why, because when you're at work with a lot of users you just don't have time for that sort of thing. So just use your zipping proggie, whatever you use and hit the option to break it into smaller zipped folders. Keep in mind that I'm working off the now unzipped 3 plus gigs that folder was. This assumes you were able to get a hold of the large file in the first place. I did for this, but you can now see the catch 22 on this thing too. Now you're done, just let it do its thing and then share your files to wherever you need.

Windows 10 updates

October 19, 2015

After some windows update a few days ago my browsers have been so slow and this is the other reason I wanted to make sure I had a different antivirus on here. I have no idea what happened but I also took out a couple of other programs I wasn't using. Those uninstalled fine, but then the updates came and bam. I'm on the slow boat with both browsers.

It turns out, the browser and some crapware and/or ad blocker where causing this super slow browsing. I did the usual maintenance and that still didn't do a thing to fix this. The cool thing about Firefox is that it has a nice and simple way to refresh the browser. Too bad the new Edge doesn't even have this which I don't bother using, but I couldn't find that option anywhere which is not a good thing.

Avira antivirus

October 19, 2015

Next I decided to try the Avira antivirus. So far the download file was small.

 Nothing too weird looking here.

 The options after I cliked on the icon.

 Hmmm...more software

 Yup, there's more stuff in there that I don't care for, but at least they make it a bit more clear and easier to say no to it. In other software they actually purposely make these hard to catch.

 Next window, same thing.

 One more here.

And the install keeps going here. This one is still taking a while. It's still updating as I am typing. I did tried this one a long time ago but really hated their other bloatware that they added. Although I'm still not crazy about this extra stuff if you're only looking for a simple antivirus to run.But they are what they are.

I should mention that the router is also running it's own antivirus, but I want to run a different one on the actual machine. This allows me to test different ones and see what works best.

After the update is finished you get this window. It's the nice simple look that I like. So I'll test this one out and see how it goes. There are many others, but I just wanted to get something for the time being. Unless you actually use them, it's hard to tell anything else.

 The best part is that when I right click on any file, now I have my option to individually scan that file and not have to go digging around to find that program and then go through a bunch of hoops just to get to it.

 After running the browser I noticed this installed as well. Yet another piece of software under the install even though I cancelled the others.

 You'll have to lower it from the middle of the browser screen as it's basically hidden and it pulls down like you would on a touch screen.

 Here's a look at this open and you can't really see anything until you hit the settings on the top right. In short, you really have to keep an eye out for all these nasty little things that get installed with now one too many freebies.

 Here's my latest pop up from avira. Yeah they are still doing this nonsense. It seems to be working okay in the background without any problem, but this stuff gets super irritating. If you do use these freebies, make sure to check that nothing else gets installed in the background. Just to be sure.

 

I turned on my computer this morning and I get this pop-up from avira...if they think this is going to help me upgrade, they are not going to be happy when I get rid of this thing. In the long run, we may be better off with the buil-in Microsoft antivirus without the pop-ups and leave all these junks out. But for now since I'm testing I don't mind checking them out.