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A little earlier this evening I was sitting at my computer reading something when suddenly a program I had never heard of suddenly popped up on my screen. It seemed to be an antivirus, and since I've had Kaspersky Free for years (and been very satisfied with it) I didn't need a new antivirus. So I attempted to remove it. I thought I did. I didn't. After "removing" the new unwanted antivirus program I noticed my Kaspersky shorcut icon had disappeared. Oops! I clicked on the new one again and sure enough it still worked, so I attempted to create...

An upcoming Netflix docuseries from Bill Gates is pushing many of the billionaire’s pet causes, including climate doomsaying, with Gates lecturing viewers at one point that “we have to give up hydrocarbons almost entirely.” Never mind that Bill Gates’ carbon footprint is many times the size of the average American’s and that Netflix itself has maintained its own private jet. What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates, which is set to begin streaming September 18, also addresses a host of other causes near and dear to the billionaire’s heart. “Misinformation,” artificial intelligence technology, and income inequality are just a few...

Last week it became clear to me that although Microsoft has “loved” Linux for more than a decade now, that love still doesn’t extend to the Linux desktop.This realization came to me as I read news of a Windows security update that borked Grub, the open-source boot loader that’s used by most Linux distributions and which is used to load Windows in dual-boot situations.After the Windows update was applied, an untold number of Windows’ dual booters were unable to boot Linux, but instead were served the scary and cryptic error message: “Something has gone seriously wrong.”According to Ars Technica, the...

Its a small difference, but a real one.Go into your operating system and for all WiFi connections set MAC address randomization.For Windows 11 it is under Network & Internet -> WiFi right at the bottom -- "Random hardware addresses."For Android it is on by default for WiFi connections -- check all of them you use, and it should be on.I suspect IOS on Macs has a similar feature.Unfortunately for most systems there is no similar setting for hardware connections (e.g. cabled.)This didn't used to matter much in the world of IPv4 because MAC addresses do not travel beyond the local...

Tesla CEO compared incoming Recall feature to an episode of Black MirrorNew Recall feature will be coming to Copilot+ PCs from JuneIt takes screenshots of everything you do on-screenSnapshots are analysed by AI on-device so they can be searchedElon Musk has announced plans to disable the feature on his PCPrivacy campaigners have also flagged concernsUK privacy watchdog has launched an investigation into RecallElon Musk has criticised a controversial new AI feature coming to Windows 11 devices this summer. Known as Recall, it takes screenshots of everything on-screen so you can scroll back in time and resume work on anything from...

Microsoft is known for their signature, “my way or the highway” approach when it comes to their offerings, with the Windows operating system being the most prominent one among those.Many in the FOSS community disagree with that approach, with a strong rejection of such practices, suggesting people go for more open options for their operating systems and applications, and I agree with them.Unfortunately, that same approach has now affected many Linux distribution users, who were sent scampering searching for a fix to a problem caused by a Windows update (who would've expected that?).Microsoft Slips Up: Linux Users Beware!Source: paku1234First spotted...

The cause of the CrowdStrike mess has been revealed by the company, together with the steps it has taken to ensure nothing similar can happen again. The company is facing a deluge of lawsuits over the estimated $5B worth of financial losses incurred by its clients, but the small print in its contract may protect it … A quick recap on the outageA huge mistake by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike last month caused a global IT outage on a massive scale, with airlines, banks, health services, and more affected – including some 911 centers. Airlines were forced to ground flights, broadcasters...

Microsoft warned customers this Tuesday to patch a critical TCP/IP remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability with an increased likelihood of exploitation that impacts all Windows systems using IPv6, which is enabled by default. Found by Kunlun Lab's XiaoWei and tracked as CVE-2024-38063, this security bug is caused by an Integer Underflow weakness, which attackers could exploit to trigger buffer overflows that can be used to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server systems.

So, Microsoft has been threatening me all year that they're going to force everyone to use "Outlook" on their computers, getting rid of "Mail". I use Outlook on my computer for a 'side hustle' business, and do not want to intermingle my email accounts on one application - and "Mail" does everything I need for my Yahoo/Gmail/etc. accounts. I've tried looking online for some, but can't really find anything that fits the job like the simple, basic "Mail". So, reaching out to the technocrati here at FreeP to see what y'all use for e-mail on a Windows laptop?

Last October, a well-known Portland antifa militant was killed under mysterious circumstances after leaving a pub popular with far-left extremists. Sean Daniel Kealiher, 23, was killed near the Cider Riot pub after being hit by a car that had been fired upon with live rounds. His friends dragged his body away and did not call the police. Kealiher’s death immediately rippled throughout Portland and beyond, leading both the far-left and even establishment Democrat leaders to mourn publicly. A GoFundMe for his funeral raised thousands. And while he was lionized in the press as a murdered “anti-fascist activist” and even called...

We Windows users are sometimes the butt of the joke when it comes to cybersecurity issues. Or at least, we often used to be. Still, if I receive one more lecture on why Linux or Mac systems are more secure, I'll at least have this article to point to. Not always, I shall say. Not always.Oligo Security's research team has discovered a “0.0.0.0 Day” vulnerability that affects Google Chrome/Chromium, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari browsers, enabling websites to communicate with software running on MacOS and Linux systems (via The Hacker News).The vulnerability means public websites using .com domains are able...

My wife's Windows 11 laptop is in an infinite loop trying to install an update that fails to install then immediately tries to install it again. This slows the laptop of so much that it is unusable. Below is a screenshot of the update screen displaying the offending optional update. I have searched and searched the Interwebs to find out how to make an update stop trying to install but have had no luck. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

A single CrowdStrike bug sent the entire tech world into chaos last week — a snafu some companies are still recovering from. Third-party agents selling and supporting CrowdStrike software and the complicated repairs for customers have been a miserably busy bunch over the past week. CrowdStrike’s token of appreciation for those vendors: a $10 Uber Eats voucher. We’re not kidding. When reports of the voucher “gifts” first surfaced on Wednesday afternoon there were three main buckets of reactions: Yup, checks out... Now partners could risk losing their customers as a result of this mess, even though it was out of...

It can cause more harm than good! Key Features ·CrowdStrike shows the havoc that can be wreaked by supposed security software. ·Most people don't need third-party antivirus software. ·Most modern-day threats are aimed at exploiting humans, not computers.

IT admins now have a quicker way to get machines up and running again after CrowdStrike’s faulty update. Microsoft has released a recovery tool that’s designed to help IT admins repair Windows machines that were impacted by CrowdStrike’s faulty update that crashed 8.5 million Windows devices on Friday. The tool creates a bootable USB drive that IT admins can use to help quickly recover impacted machines. While CrowdStrike has issued an update to fix its software that led to millions of Blue Screen of Death errors, not all machines are able to automatically receive that fix. Some IT admins have...

undreds of flights were cancelled at British airports yesterday due to the fault ... Travel disruption is continuing today as trains are hit in Crowdstrike outage with ticket machines and scanners going down at London stations. The meltdown chaos comes after the world's biggest IT disaster struck, with thousands of Brits stranded abroad. It happened on one of year's busiest travel days, with families now desperately queuing at Dover Port in an attempt to get home. After another 45 flights were cancelled today, 28,000 Brits are fighting to get a seat on a plane. Some passengers stuck overseas have been...

Vanity: Massive IT Outage Hits Major U.S. Hospital Chain: Microsoft Crowdstrike Glitch Forces Cancellation of All Elective Surgeries and Medical Procedures....

For the techies…. On Friday 19 July 2024, Microsoft reported that it suffered a major outage for many Azure services. This affected airlines, banks and media:… CrowdStrike have already published a patch for Falcon Sensor, and which affects all of CrowdStike’s customers: Restart Windows and boot into Troubleshooting mode 2. Open a command prompt 3. Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike 4. Locate the file matching “C-00000291* sys”, and delete it. 5. Continue normal startup Overall, it looks like the Falcon Sensor bug caused Azure services to glitch, and which caused many systems around the world to fall-over.

Falcon Sensor putting hosts into deathloop - but there's a workaround icon Simon Sharwood Fri 19 Jul 2024 // 06:46 UTC UPDATED An update to a product from infosec vendor CrowdStrike is bricking computers running Windows. The Register has found numerous accounts of Windows 10 PCs crashing, displaying the Blue Screen of Death, then being unable to reboot. “We're seeing BSOD Org wide that are being caused by csagent.sys, and it's taking down critical services. I'll open a ticket, but this is a big deal,” wrote one user. Forums report that Crowdstrike has issued an advisory with a URL that...

I've long used Norton Anti-Virus (I think they used to be called Symantec). But I think it's a memory hog. Sometimes it seems to use all available CPU. When I do a video screen capture on a movie that I'm playing, the movie records all jittery, full of pauses. I Disable Norton's Auto-Protect, but that doesn't help. I wonder if Norton is obeying me?Norton foisted a VPN onto my computer. I tried it several times, but it never works, never makes a connection. Only tells me to try later.When I renewed last year, I checked a box to not renew...