Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
June 11, 2006

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Volume 1, Number 52 — Sunday, June 11, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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Find and Repair Windows Registry Errors and Problems
Scan, Repair and Optimize your Windows Registry with XP Repair Pro
Download and scan for free.
User-Friendly License: One purchase covers all your home PC's.

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4.  Windows Live OneCare®

Microsoft announced this week the release of Windows Live OneCare®, their new combination security suite at a price of $49.95 per year. At this price, OneCare will cover up to 3 PC's. Microsoft also offers a 90 day free trial of OneCare, which is currently only available in the U.S.

OneCare includes anti-virus and anti-spyware scanners an a "managed" two-way firewall. OneCare also includes functions to regularly defragment your hard drive and even has functions to backup and restore your important files and settings to CD, DVD or external hard drive.

I expect that a free trial of OneCare will come packaged with any copy of Windows, whether retail, retail upgrade, or pre-installed versions.

OneCare will be an annual subscription service, purchased directly from Micrososft. When you think about the economics of this compared to packaging a product and then selling it to distributors for subsequent resale, OneCare is poised to be as big a moneymaker for Microsoft as is Windows.

Whether it destroys the competition or not will depend on how many consumers buy into the concept of paying Microsoft for a separate service to block the security holes in Microsoft's software.

http://terryscomputertips.com/onecare

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5.  Firefox Memory Problems

Another question I answered this week was about Firefox's memory handling. In this case, Firefox was seeming to go wild in allocating memory — and building up quite an allocation, too.

Subscriber Catherine asked:

I upgraded to firefox 1.5.0.4 and I have seen an increase in the memory usage under Windows Task Manager. It shows 138,000k and sometimes more and I can only download one file at a time. If I try to download two files a box will pop up telling me to close firefox. I just hit cancel and wait until the first file downloads and this clears up the box.

I tried IE and I can download up to 6 or more files without waiting for the first to finish and IE is only using about 26,000k.

Before I upgraded my Firefox, it too only used about 26,000k or so.

Something may be wrong in your installation, or may not be . Firefox will cache information in available memory, and this will show up in the Windows Task Manager as "memory usage."

Try closing Firefox and reopening it. Then, immediately use Windows Task Manager to check how much memory Firefox is using.

I'm running Firefox 1.5.0.4 and currently have two Firefox windows open, with a total of 15 open tabs in Firefox. Windows Task Manager shows Firefox is only using 59,736K. I'm not having any problems downloading multiple files, either (see 2nd paragraph below).

You can set Firefox's cache options by:

• For Firefox's disk cache -- Tools/Options/Privacy/Cache
• For Firefox's memory cache -- this one is changed via a hidden Firefox function

There is a hidden Firefox configuration directive that could be your problem, if the value is set to 1. I can download multiple files at a time, but only two. That's because my "network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server" is set to 2.

You can find this Firefox configuration entry, and the "browser.cache.memory.capacity" which sets the Firefox's maximum memory cache, and many other dangerous configuration settings by typing
    about:config
in Firefox's address bar and then pressing the Enter key. Use the Filter box on the about:config page to find stuff-- it's a real-time filter, you don't have to click enter.

If you still have problems downloading multiple files, or think Firefox is still taking too much memory, you could always try a full uninstall, delete and reinstall by

1. backing up your profiles (see my article on Backing up your Firefox, Netscape and Mozilla Profiles).
2. uninstall Firefox
3. open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Documents and Settings\[yourUserID]\Application Data\Mozilla
4. delete the Firefox directory and everything in it
5. reboot (probably not necessary with XP, but why not to make sure?)
6. reinstall Firefox 1.5.0.4
7. reinstall your profiles

Some other readers responded with information about Firefox problems with Microsoft Outlook, including high memory usage.

In a later response, Catherine wrote

Closing and reopening I get 24,012K

One Firefox window with 15 open tabs shows 78,964K. But once I start downloading a file it goes way up. Once it hit 170,000k)

And, then she wrote again to say it was solved.

Thanks Terry for the info. It worked. I lowered my cache to 5mb and I also changed the options in my downloads history folder to remove files upon successful download. Now I can download as many files as I want and the pages do not freeze up on me. Also, with about 23 tabs open the most my memory useage goes is about 90,000 to 101,00. This comes down as I close my pages. I never had the problem with Outlook. I guess we each get our own special gremlins. ;-) Catherine

Firefox is my favorite web browser. I use it almost exclusively. I don't use Internet Explorer for surfing to unknown sites — I use it at Microsoft's site and for checking web sites I design.

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6.  My Computer Security Software Recommendations

Anti-Virus

For your anti-virus needs (and, yes, you do have anti-virus needs!) I recommend anti-virus software from Trend Micro, Panda Software, Kaspersky or ESET.

Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2006 offers anti-virus, anti-spam, and firewall for your PC and PDA. TrendMicro provides an easy-to-use product that is from one of the big names in the anti-virus world.

• SAVE $9.95 when you purchase Trend Micro Anti-Spyware and PC-cillin Internet Security 2006.
• Save 60% when you Buy PC-cillin Internet Security 2006 - 3 User package.

Panda Software's Platinum 2006 Internet Security offers anti-virus, anti-spam, firewall and more.

The Kaspersky Personal Security Suite is a program package specifically developed to provide comprehensive protection from all types of malicious programs for personal computers running under the Windows operating system (Win98, WinMe, 2000, XP). This solution prevents the infiltration of viruses, worms, spyware, adware and other malicious programs via potential penetration paths, provides protection against unauthorized access attempts, and includes anti-spam components. Kaspersky claims the industry leading virus detection rates and the fastest virus updates. Kaspersky offers a 30-day free trial on its products.

Each of the above companies also offers a stand-alone anti-virus program.

I'm often asked about several large, popular anti-virus or anti-virus combination packages. Yes, I realize that they are not in my recommendation list, although I could easily use referral links for them, too.

My personal choice is the ESET's small, fast NOD32 anti-virus program, which offers a FREE 30-day evaluation license. I consider NOD32 to be the cream of the crop in anti-virus protection. Unlike some of the others, ESET offers multiple-year licenses also, including updates to the program as well as to the anti-virus signatures.

Read more about anti-virus programs on my web site.

Firewall Software

If you get either the PC-cillin Internet Security or the Panda Software Internet Security package above, you are covered from a firewall point of view.

While the Windows XP firewall is much better than no firewall, don't count on the Windows XP firewall to provide your needs. You need a much better firewall than the Windows XP firewall.

The Windows XP firewall does not control outbound communications originating from your computer -- and you should want to have control if adware/trojans/spyware or even commercial products want to talk to the Internet.

Do you want Windows Media Player to call home every time you play something? It does! Do you use the Search function in Windows Explorer to find things on your hard drive? Did you know that every time you search, Windows Explorer talks to Microsoft -- I didn't know that when I ran ZoneAlarm, but the Kerio Firewall flags that for me, and I can stop or allow it to happen.

Many other programs call home when you run them, too.

If you don't get either of the above multi-function packages, I recommend my choice for a firewall program is Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall. You can try the full-featured "paid version" of Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall free for 30 days -- after that, you can register it or it loses the special functions of the paid version. Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall is $19.95 for a non-expiring license for the program and includes one year of their updates subscription.

You may prefer ZoneAlarm Pro or the ZoneAlarm free firewall as alternatives — I used to...

Read more about the need for firewalls in my The Internet Versus You and Do I Need a Firewall Program? articles.

Anti-Spyware / Anti-Adware Software

CounterSpy, from Sunbelt Software, has received many kudos from the computer press for its always-running and periodic full system scans. I use CounterSpy on my notebook (my main computer!), my wife's computer and my son's computer. I highly recommend this program.

Panda Software's Platinum 2006 Internet Security also includes anti-spyware. Anti-spyware is one situation where more than one scanner actually is better. Only let one program provide the real-time, always-running protection, but doing periodic scans with two different programs are a better solution to adware & spyware than only one scanner. No one anti-spyware program catches everything. Also, different companies differ in their criteria for classifying programs as adware and/or spyware.

Anti-spam Software

In today's Internet world, the question is not "if" you will get spam, but when and how much. I'm changing my recommendation on anti-spam software. I use and now I recommend PopFile as my first choice.

PopFile uses a different approach to spam than some other programs — it does nothing to reduce spam. It is designed as an email classification tool — you train it to recognize spam and any other type of email that you want to classify. These classifications can help you sort your emails into appropriate folders in your email program.

Mailwasher Pro is my first choice to handle spam before it ever gets into your computer's Inbox. Mailwasher Pro uses on-line Realtime Black Lists mail servers sending spam recently, "training" by you of what you think is spam, and your own "friends" and "blacklist" lists. Mailwasher Pro can even bounce spam messages, as if your email address was not valid, although the usefulness and appropriateness of this is questionable. There is s free version called "Mailwasher," but it omits a lot of the functions of Mailwasher Pro that I consider essential for that purpose — such as previewing the emails safely before they ever get to your email inbox.

Cable/DSL Router

If you have a cable modem or a DSL modem, you need to have another layer of inexpensive protection between you and the Internet. A cable/DSL router isolates your computer from direct connection to the Internet. Your computer can easily request your email, web pages, etc. through the router. The responses come back to the router and are smoothly routed to your computer. But, someone on the Internet side of the router can not initiate a connection to your computer — they can only respond to your request.

Even if you only have one computer to connect to your cable or DSL modem, I recommend that you purchase and use a cable/DSL router because of the protection it can give you against attempts to attack through some flaws in Windows itself.

A router isolates your local network, whether it is only one computer or several, from the Internet by actually making it a separate network. The router gets the "public" IP address and handles all your outbound communications and the responses to them. But, it blocks computers on the Internet side from being able to initiate communications with your computer! This will prevent you from falling prey to many worms that try to attack security holes in Windows itself.

My pick is the Linksys WRT54G 802.11g wireless router (Amazon.com or Buy.com ). If you don't want wireless now, or at any time, the function is easily turned off in the router's menu. You may be able to find a wired (that is, non-wireless) Linksys router on sale. If you don't want wireless, I recommend the Linksys BEFSR42 wired router (Amazon.com or Buy.com). Either way, based on my experience, I recommend Linksys routers.

Read more on my Wireless Security web page.

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WinClear - Internet History Cleaner
Shred your history list, temporary internet files, form data, cookies, etc.

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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Volume 1, Number 52 — Sunday, June 11, 2006
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Copyright © 2006 Terry A. Stockdale.  All rights reserved.