Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Demophobe]

Hi all.

Just thought I would throw this up for folks who want to try to keep their Windows installation a bit cleaner and running well.

If you can get your hands on Window Washer at www.webroot.com (not free), it's a great little program and well-worth the money. It takes care of most of the major directories that can be emptied and really does a nice job of wiping away your virtual footprints after surfing. Webroot makes some fine software. Browse their "products" list.

Another good program which is free is CCleaner. http://www.ccleaner.com/ Basically the same program as Window Washer, but free.

A general list of files that need to be cleaned up periodically:

In the C:/DocumentsAndSettings folder, under your user name, look in "local settings". If you can't see this folder, go to the "folder options" in the "tools" list at the top of every folder. Go through the "view files" and uncheck "Hide filenames of known types", "hide system files" and anything else that has to do with "seeing" files in the folders.

Now you can see the "local settings" folder. Go into that and you will see a "temp" folder and a "temporary internet files" folder. These can be safely emptied. This list goes for all users in the C:Documents and Settings" folder. Each user has this set of folders to be checked. They should be empty if you are an only user, but you never know. I have found stuff in my "All Users" area before, though noone else uses my system.

In C:/Windows, the "Internet Logs" folder can be emptied (although some files will be "in use" and un-deleteable), as can the "Prefetch" and "Temp" folders.

After surfing, go into the browser options and delete all cookies and internet cache files. It's a good idea to set this number low...change the "cache size", as it's not very useful anyways, and it just stuffs up the system with lots of cached files from the webpages you have visited. The idea is that the browser holds on to some of the files in a web page, to speed loading next time you go there and so save on some internet bandwidth. Pages that have a lot of "post" data are always changing, and sometimes one needs to "refresh" the page (F5) to get the newest version. I have this set at 10MB and "days to keep history" set at 0.

Now, Window Washer and CCleaner will take care of some of these files, but not the ones in the C:Documents and Settings" folders. You will have to create a custom wash item Window Washer, or do it manually, as CCleaner has no add-on wash capabilities.

The browser clearing is also taken care of by both programs, but I just threw that in there as it's good to do even in the middle of a surfing session...anytime, really. Also clear the address bar while you are at it. Don't need your friends to see "ihearvoices.com" in the drop-down, eh?

Now, after doing this 'cleaning' with WW or CCleaner, your computer won't have some of the info you are used to having...well, not really info, but functionality. All cookies will be gone, so no more auto-login stuff for Dave's and e-mail accounts. Some other useful-but-better-deleted things like this will be left to you to manually change/set/login each visit. It's the price of a clean, trackless computer, so think of it as a good thing.

This is just a "little baby" list of things to be cleared. There are registry settings and many more hard-to-find, pain-in-the-neck things left, so I urge everyone to get at least CCleaner. It's free and effective. Window Washer is more configureable and has more options, but it's not free. There is NO REASON not to get CCleaner! It's small, free and idiot-proof.

There are actually 2 reasons one would want clean. Web anonymity (to a degree) and for the sake of a cleaner OS.

Use a proxy when you can as well for a multitude of reasons. Gone are the days when only hackers need to shield themselves with fake I.Ps through proxies. The internet is a deadly place, and moreso for the innocent than those in the know. A proxy can do many good things for you, from cookies and connection speed to web bugs. Do a "Google" for "Public Anonymous Proxy" and then the fun begins.

You will have to go into your browser options again, and look at the "connection" menu in IE, or the "Proxy" menu in Firefox. When you have found a good proxy site, you will have to try a few to see if they are functional. Public proxies are free, and therefore somewhat unreliable. Here today, gone tomorrow, so setting up a good working proxy does take some time.

Open a second browser window and copy & paste the proxy I.P and port number into your browser proxy settings window. In the second window, try to connect top some of the URLs in your "favorites" folder, to see if it's fast and indeed does connect. If you get some error message, try a different proxy. You may have to go through a number of them to find a working proxy. When you do find a good one, do an online proxy check to see how anonymous you are. Again, "Google" "Online Proxy Checker" and you will find a nice list of sites to help.

The truly " high anonymity" proxies are often slower, so choose a "transparent" or "anonymous", depending on how "visible" you want your proxy to be and how patient you are. A "transparent" proxy simply means that the website can see it's a proxy. An "anonymous" proxy is transparent unles under certain conditions, ie; through some java controls or other types of scripts. A "high anonymity" proxy has no value of a proxy server detectable, and this coupled with disabling java in the browser options window makes one very tough to spot.

Now, java is a good and bad thing, as are active X controls. Disabling them will save many people a lot of headaches, but many internet pages won't load corrctly and many e-mail sites require it to be enabled. Try surfing for a while without java and active X enabled to see how much of your surf needs these enabled. Through these, many malicious things can be done on one's computer. Having Java and active X enabled makes a proxy useless against anyone who really wants to know your I.P, so if you really want to hide, these must be disabled to make the proxy of any worth. With Java and Active X enabled, a proxy can still be of great service, though not for hiding completely.

Check the browser options menu again for enabling/disabling these features, as well as the insane-if-you-have-it-enabled "install on demand" or "enable 3rd party browser extentions" boxes checked. These are often how browser hijacks occur.

Having a rich, colorful, animated surf means opening some vulnerabilities that many companies have a vested interest in. Closing these off via disabling some browser features will indeed "flatten out" your internet experience, but at least you will always have one.

So, a proxy, CCleaner, java and Active X all play a big (albeit basic) part in a few areas of internet/computer life. I will try to add to this when my brain cleaner is run...my cache is full right now.

I hope it helps and you all add to it as well.

[jazblanc77]

Wow, long post Demo... I actually read it through!

I would also recommend getting a registry cleaner. Fix-it Utilities is a little bit more effective but easier to make a mistake with. It also has a registry defrag which you may or may not want to use.

It would also be a good idea to upgrade your Flash Media Player to the most recent release (hijacks have occured through versions 5.0 and 6.0), and get Spyware Blaster running on your computer ASAP.

With ActiveX and Java, I don't have a solution. If for example, you have a wife who likes to shop on Korean websites, you need both to be able to keep those sites functionning, along with 3rd party cookies and install-on-demand. So what to do! I have just setup IE to function as a "purchasing browser" (I even changed the window name to read "Break glass in case of emergency), and I use Mozilla for normal browsing. In this scheme, IE is only to be used quicly on trusted sites and then closed and back to Mozilla. This is probably not a good idea but I don't see it as an option to change the settings to my browser everytime I need functionality... I can't even update my AV without activeX and scripts, how annoying!

[Demophobe]

Hi Jaz! Thanks for reading it all, though you are probably one of the ones I would say didn't need to!

As far as updates for AV etc... just download the file to your computer from the site...don't do auto-updates. AV companies all have the latest definitions for download.

Your plan sounds pretty good for the 2 browser thing. What van you do is right....the net needs all of these dangerous code events to function well.

[jazblanc77]

[wylde]

system mechanic cleans, fixes the registry and kills popups... although someone will prolly tell me it isn't good enough..

it's free with a crack









like ram will only fail when something acts upon it

[jazblanc77]

I use a similar program

[Demophobe]

[wylde]

my point again... if nothing causes a problem, it should last forever?

[jazblanc77]

Planned obsolescence perhaps? How old are your RAM chips?

It would be my argument that anything electronic can break down over time, even if it doesn't have moving parts.

[Demophobe]

[wylde]

i had 2 ram chips... 12 month old system

1 failed after 9 months... simple as that..


things just break, can't you accept that?

like a monitor i had before.. when it broke, was it the computer's fault or the monitor? it also had no moving parts..

when my hdd broke, was it the computer's fault?


i guess you have been lucky with computers..

[Demophobe]

I won't go into this any further, but what's your point here? Things like monitors have thousands of pieces, so things can go wrong with any one of them. RAM is not the same, and your parallel between a monitor and a stick of RAM is totally unequal. Apples to grapes.

Anyways, I have my opinion and you have yours. Is it so hard to believe that there is a reason as to why it failed as opposed to just throwing your arms up and saying "whatever"? Wouldn't you like to know? Sorry for trying to help you diagnose your problem...I guess you like buying RAM.

I too have no point, outside of the fact that you have probably have another problem. Like a car...one small, unattended problem can lead to many others.

Then again, you may have bought cheap, generic, low-quality RAM. Nothing can save you there.

And for the record, no I can't just accept a RAM stick failing via "just breaking" after 9 months. That's very odd and if you just accept it, then....well...it's your system.

[wylde]

albeit unusual.. things like this happen


sometimes for no reason at all

[The King of Kwangju]

Sad to see cookies are still getting a bad rap.

I never used any 'washing" programs, I clear my cache all the time (I'm a web designer) and I defrag once a month or so, which seems to work fine. Anything more than that seems a bit anal retentive, as does this:

[Demophobe]