computer safety

For years, Windows users have occasionally found themselves in that nerve-racking moment when the system freezes solid—apps hang, the taskbar won’t respond, and even the tried-and-true Ctrl + Alt + Delete combination sometimes feels futile. The instinct in such a crisis is to forcibly hold down...

Windows 11 continues to surprise its users. The latest April 2025 cumulative update—KB5055523—has introduced an unexpected twist: the creation of an empty "inetpub" folder in the root of the C: drive, even on systems where Internet Information Services (IIS) is not installed. While the folder’s...

Hi, I have a windows 10 machine installed with a dual boot of manjaro linux. I have grub installed as the boot loader. Now, the issue is that my windows 10 updates doesn't complete. I wanted to try and start up in safe mode but there's no options at all. Windows 10 boots normally and fine but...

Hi guys. Unfortunately I have lovely neighbours who keep hacking me and have done on my windows laptop for the last 7 months. I want to switch off any facilities that allow them to make any changes to the laptop that will cause it to have problems. So I would like network sharing off. Remote...

Hi Every Time I run Malwarebytes it finds and removes several unwanted programs. This has been going on for some time. Here's a screenshot that shows what the Pups are... It's always the exact same programs, anyone know how to stop these from coming back? They aren't getting installed...

Hello: Kinda related to a previous thread, but not the same question so..... Awhile back, I backed up my iPhone 5S to a computer. I have sensitive data on in (on the strong end, my clients personal financial data/SSN/cc numbers). I need/want to securely remove all of my phones backup data from...

I'm trying to understand the nature of virus/malware/ransomware to better apply my backup strategies. So here are some questions I have: Question Scenario #1 - Lets say I have 2 internal hard drives connected to my PC. One with Windows10 installed and the other one with Linux installed. I use...

Hi fast question. My mobo Asus Z170-P and psu Corsair 750RM. 3 months ago there was power outage ( for short time ) in my house,and my pc restart with message: "“Power supply surges detected during the previous power on ASUS anti-surge was triggered to protect system from unstable supply unit.”...

Antivirus tools are a useless box-ticking exercise says Google security chap Antivirus tools are a useless box-ticking exercise says Google security chap Came across this article surfing my usual tech news sites and wanted to get y'all's thoughts. I know @Neemobeer and I have had a few posts...

I am running Windows 10 and Internet Explorer. I have depended on Windows Defender to protect me from virus , malware, Trojans, etc. But, my system became infected with safesear.ch. Windows defender did not detect this virus. I used Malware Bytes to remove it. So, what anti virus would you...

Police in The Netherlands in cooperation with Europol, Kaspersky and Intel Security, announced a new website with offers help to victims of ransomware and with advice to protect your system against it. Here it is: The No More Ransom Project I hope it helps Henk

Hi I'm not a expert on these things, but I found this while searching. Don't know if it's any good, but thought I would post it here and get thoughts;) of the members here! Move delete or what ever is appropriate. BadBlock encrypts System Files. Decryptor Released by Emsisoft

This is not a problem for me but I did not know where to post this question Which is: When a computer is infected with Ransomware is just the C drive encrypted or do all other partitions and hard drives encrypted? I have 3 hard drives and one is external that is always connected with a total of...

There was once a time when you might only expect to pick up some malicious software on certain types of websites. It seems now, almost anywhere might expose you to such things. I was doing something as innocent as looking for the radio frequencies used in Microwave ovens and ended up getting...

I'm running regular backups on my Windows 7 computer. My destination for most backups is a USB 3.0 hard drive. I have several internal hard drives that I also use, but I'm using the USB drive so that I can totally isolate the backup files from anyone out there who wants to do harm to my system...

I recently made a support call to what I thought was HP customer support. The rep that answered tried to convince me I had a virus in my hard drive and that I needed to purchase Microsoft Forefront Security Service. At this point I ended the call, however I did foolishly allow the rep to access...

Hi Last night I was watching a TV show and the cops were struggling with getting access to the data on the computer because they couldn't get past the password. How many times have we seen that scene? I boot into computers all the time using my Ubuntu USB drive, bypassing the pass word...

I have a GA-K8NXP-SLI motherboard bought to me by a friend as it needs a windows upgrade because it is still using Windows XP. I plugged the computer in yesterday and when i turned it on a box came on the screen asking for a floppy disk with the latest BIOS on it, but i didn't ask the computer...

Hi My friend Paul has a message keep popping up in the lower right hand corner of his monitor saying that it is Windows Security Essentials and that it has found a virus that needs to be removed. The thing is it doesn't look quite right to me, the window is yellow and doesn't look like...

We've recently been having problems with redirects when clicking the links of search results in our browsers (IE and Firefox). We tried a few different virus scans and nothing was able to find it. However, we did realize that Microsoft Security Essentials would not run when we clicked the...