Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
December 7, 2008

Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter
http://www.terryscomputertips.com
A computer tips newsletter for users of PC's.

Volume 4, Number 26 — Sunday, December 7, 2008

IN THIS ON-LINE ISSUE:

   1.   Hiding the Firefox History and Bookmarks Sidebars
   2.   HowTo: Adding Icons to the Firefox Icon Bar
   3.   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   4.   Reader Comments and Solutions
   5.   Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends

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Welcome to the on-line edition of my Terry's Computer Tips newsletter. Its articles are not in the email issue — and the email articles aren't in the online issue — subscribe to my email newsletter so you can read both.

1.  Hiding the Firefox History and Bookmarks Sidebars

Subscriber Carol wrote to ask me about some strange behavior she was seeing in Firefox 3.0:

Dear Terry,

Is there anyway I can get rid of the irritating history memory (of favorites/bookmarks) at the right hand side of the address bar in the new firefox 3.0. I know I can do it via getting rid of temp files etc. but it is long winded and , I just don't want to have a list keep popping up at the side, even if they are MY favorites in MY favorites/bookmarks....I would like to have the choice of whether I want to see them all the time or not.
regards carol

Fortunately, Firefox has several ways to turn on the display of the History list or the Bookmarks list in the Sidebar. The same methods let you hide or turn them off the Bookmarks list and the History list.

To display or hide the bookmarks list:

View > Sidebar > Bookmarks
or Control-B

View > Sidebar > History
or Control-H

I'm not why she's seeing these "popping up" — they should only show up on request, or when the Firefox web browser is opened, if it was closed with the bookmarks or history showing.

 

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Firefox has a neat feature: you can add additional icons to the web browser's icon bar!

By default, the icon bar is very limited. The default configuration includes only the Back button, the Forward buttonn (not email, Forward as in, after you've used the Back button), the Reload button, the Stop button and the Home button.

Notice how sparse the icon bar is in the image below (plus, the Back, Forward and Stop buttons are grayed–out at this point).

(click on the image for a larger version)

Firefox can do so much more. In the icon bar of my normal Firefox web browser, I have five additional icons. Three of these are available in Firefox 3, while the other two are part of add-ons for Firefox.

The three that are available as part of the standard Firefox 3 web browser are first, second and last ones indicated with the red arrows. The first icon will open a new web browser window. The second opens a new tab in the current window.

The last onne is a Print icon — and, better than Internet Explorer's Print icon, this one opens the Print dialog box (if you have multiple printers, this is a valuable feature).

(click on the image for a larger version)

The third and fourth icons are for the Web Developer toolbar and for the StumbleUpon toolbar (www.stumbleupon.com).

Note the word "toolbar" on both of those icons. Rather than doing a specific function themselves, these become one-click buttons to open or close their respective toolbars.

Of course, I could open and close them with the main menu bar View > Toolbars > StumbleUpon toolbar and with View > Toolbars > Web Developer toolbar, but these buttons make the process so much easier for frequent changes.

Above is the view with those two icons unclicked. The image below shows the Web Developer and StumbleUpon toolbars clicked and in view. Note that the order of the icons in the icon bar has nothing to do with the order of the toolbars themselves — the StumbleUpon toolbar is above the Web Developer toolbar.

(click on the image for a larger version)

So, how do you add icons to the Firefox toolbar?

As a prerequisite, the icon has to be available in Firefox or in a Firefox Add-on that you have installed.

Then, it's simple...

First, you right-click on any icon on the Firefox icon bar. That will get you a short pop-up Context menu. Select "Customize.." from the Context menu.

That will open the Firefox dialog box that shows the icons you have available to add to any icon bar.

Notice the text in the dialog box. It says "You can add o remove items by dragging to or from the toolbars.

(click on the image for a larger version)

Now, see the History and Bookmarks sidebar icons on the Firefox icon bar, after I dragged and dropped them there.

(click on the image for a larger version)

Can I add these icons to any Firefox toolbar bar?

Not really. In the image below, we see that the toolbars that do not accept additional icons are represented, but are not opened. For example, you can not add icons to the Bookmarks Toolbar or to the StumbleUpon toolbar.

On the other hand, when an Add-on places icons in the Customize Toolbar dialog box, you can use them on other toolbars, not just the toolbar that added them.

(click on the image for a larger version)

Once you click the Done button on the Customize Toolbar dialog box, the toolbars display fully again.

Normally, I have the Web Developer toolbar and the StumbleUpon toolbar hidden, so that I have more screen space for web site content. The icon bar buttons give me easy access to those toolbars.

3.  My Computer Security Software Recommendations

Anti-Virus

I'm often asked about several other popular anti-virus or anti-virus combination packages. Yes, I realize that they are not in my recommendation list. "Enough said..."

For the last five years, until very recently, my personal choice has been ESET's small, fast NOD32 anti-virus program, which offers a FREE 30-day evaluation license. I consider NOD32 one of the best in anti-virus protection. Unlike some of its competitors, ESET offers multiple-year licenses also, and includes program updates in the multiple-year license.

Now, I've changed from my long-time programs NOD32 (antivirus) and CounterSpy (antispyware) to Sunbelt's new VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware.

I've found that VIPRE puts even less load on my computer than the speedy combination of NOD32 and CounterSpy. I've also been impressed with the way its "deep scan" has found and eliminated risks that were stored in zip files, which is one of the latest malware email tricks.

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

Related articles:

• Anti-Virus Programs and Online Scanners
• Free Online Antivirus Scan
• NOD32 Anti-Virus Review - A Look at NOD32
• VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware Review

Click here for more information about VIPRE.

Firewall Software

While the Windows XP firewall is much better than no firewall at all, don't count on the Windows XP firewall to meet your needs. You need a two-way firewall, which the Windows XP firewall is not!. Microsoft woke up and supplied a two-way firewall with Windows Vista.

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. Whether they are calling home or spewing spam, you want to be able to control your computer.

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 Sunbelt Personal Firewall flags that to me, and I can stop it or allow it to happen. Many other programs try to call home when you run them, too.

I recommend my choice for a firewall program, which is Sunbelt Personal Firewall.

You can try the full-featured "paid version" of Sunbelt Personal Firewall free for 30 days — after that, you can register it or, if you're using it on a home non-business computer, you can let it revert to the free, lesser-function license.

Sunbelt Personal Firewall is regularly $19.95 (with discounts for multiple computers and/or multiple years!) for a non-expiring license for the program and includes one year of their updates subscription.

Related articles:

• The Internet Versus You
• Do I Need a Firewall Program?
• My Sunbelt Personal Firewall Review

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. It has been my personal choice for my PC's and my family's PC's.

Sunbelt's CounterSpy v2.5, both improved CounterSpy's performance against malware and reduced its impact on system resources and responsiveness when its scanning.

Sunbelt continues to release updated program versions — the current version is v3.1. Nicely, they do NOT install the updated programs automatically. You have to use the Update process in the program, which means that you'll know that something significant has changed.

Now, I've changed from my long-time programs NOD32 (antivirus) and CounterSpy (antispyware) to Sunbelt's new VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware.

I've found that VIPRE puts even less load on my computer than the speedy combination of NOD32 and CounterSpy. My computer seems to have much more pep and power than it had previously. I've also been impressed with the way its "deep scan" has found and eliminated risks that were stored in zip files, which is one of the latest malware email tricks.

Related articles:

• Fighting Against Spyware & Malware
• My CounterSpy Review
• My VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware Review

Anti-spam Software

In today's Internet world, the question is not "if" you will get spam, but "how much will you get?"

I use and now I recommend POPFile as my first choice for handling spam. POPFile sits on your computer, between your email program and your ISP mailbox, and handles emial as it downloads.

POPFile uses a different approach to handle spam than some other programs do — 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.

Sunbelt Software, who makes the anti-spyware program CounterSpy (which I use and recommend) and the firewall that I use and recommend (Sunbelt Personal Firewall) also has a well-regarded, award-winning anti-spam program called iHateSpam for Outlook and Outlook Express. Since I don't use Outlook or Outlook Express for email, I haven't tried iHateSpam.

Mailwasher Pro would be 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. Note: I found that PopFile generally meets my needs and stopped using Mailwasher Pro, even though PopFile works AFTER the emails have been downloaded. If I used a dialup connection, I would be more interested in Mailwasher Pro.

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 a free version called "Mailwasher," but it omits the functions that I consider critical for this purpose -- such as safely previewing the emails safely before they ever get to your email inbox.

Related articles:

• Spam Filtering
• Keeping spam out of your Inbox
• Getting Control of Your Inbox
• How Can I Prevent spam?

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.

For a wireless router, I recommend the Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I'm using the relatively new version 6 of this router.

If you don't want wireless, I recommend the Linksys BEFSR41 wired router, which I also use. Either way, based on my experience, I recommend Linksys routers for price, reliability and Linksys' habit of releasing updated firmware for their products..

See these related articles:

• Wireless Security
• Wi-Fi Hotspots and Computer Security
• Wireless Networking Problems & Wireless Networking Security

After last week's email and online newsletters, I received a number of comments.

One article was about a reader's problems with certain web sites when she was using Firefox. I suggested a number of possibilities, including the one subscriber JPB wrote to about:

Web page loading problem with Firefox. i had the same problem. I removed the script blocking add-on and all is well.
Have a happy holiday season.

Clif, of the Clif Notes Newsletter, wrote to suggest:

Hi Terry, For those having problems with an installed copy of Firefox, a good trouble-shooting method is to use a portable copy to see if it's acting up as well. http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable Since the portable version doesn't read or write to the registry or use any application data folders, it shouldn't have the same problems your installed copy would have. I actually don't use any installed browsers other than IE and I don't recommend using installed browsers if you can avoid it. See http://freewarewiki.com/HowManyBrowsersDoYouHaveInstalled Best wishes to you Terry Clif

Reader Jim wrote with a question about Windows 98:

I am a regular to your newsletter and would like to ask if anyone out there has ever installed Linkseys 54G wireless adapter in W98 system? I am currently using the adapter on another PC with WXP and it works fine there.

When I loaded the CD into the W98 system (it was intended for W XP) the PC downloaded the info but cannot associate the access point to the Monitor.

Is there a specific driver that will allow the use of this wireless unit on W98?
Jim

I wrote back to Jim to suggest that he look for a driver download at www.linksys.com for Windows 98 for his specific adapter model. I also told him that I didn't think he would find one, though, unless the adapter was avaiable when Windows 98 was a current product.

Windows 98 had poor support for USB and set up USB drivers differently than did WIndows Me and XP. Some USB devices that had 98 drivers required that the driver software be installed, and Windows rebooted, before you plugged in the device. Others worked the "normal way" where you plug in the device and then add the driver diskette when Windows asks for it.

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