David L. Farquhar

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When Chrome passed Internet Explorer for the first time

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 30, 2025May 26, 2025

It was on April 30, 2012 that Chrome passed Internet Explorer in market share for the first time. It took nearly 14 years for someone to pass the former afterthought in the Microsoft Plus pack to become the dominant browser. The two browsers jockeyed for the lead for two weeks, with Chrome overcoming IE for good on May 14, 2012.

With Chrome taking over, we traded one monopolist, Microsoft, for another, Google.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Run Windows 11 on unsupported hardware

Dave Farquhar Windows April 25, 2025February 17, 2025

Windows 10 is going end of life in mid October, less than six months from now. It’s not supported on PCs with less than an 8th-generation Core i series processor, which leaves a huge number of systems that run Windows 10 more or less fine out in the cold. But there is a way around that. I’ve been running Windows 11 on unsupported hardware for a few months. And believe it or not, I almost like it better than Windows 10.

There’s no guarantee this will work forever. Microsoft may release future updates that require features present in newer CPUs. But this buys us some time beyond October 2025, at the very least.

Dave Farquhar

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Webvan: The too much, too early dotcom

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 15, 2025April 25, 2025

Some dotcom-era startups were just bad ideas, and others were bad timing. I think Webvan was in the bad timing category. Today there is nothing especially odd about the idea of ordering groceries over the Internet. Several successful companies use some kind of variant of that business model today with success. On April 26, 2001, Webvan had an especially bad day. It pulled out of the Atlanta market, laid off 885 employees, and planned a 1-for-25 reverse stock split in a desperate attempt to keep its stock listed. This was just 13 days after its CEO, George Shaheen, resigned, on April 13, 2001.

Dave Farquhar

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When Microsoft retired Clippy

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 11, 2025June 13, 2025

Clippy was the unofficial nickname of the office assistant, a feature present in Microsoft Office 97 and Microsoft Office 2000. His proper name was Clippit, but nobody I knew called him that. Clippit, or Clippy, was inspired by Microsoft Bob, a misguided attempt to make Microsoft Office friendlier, more helpful, and easier to use. But most frequently, it was more annoying than any of those other things. On April 11, 2001, Microsoft announced the Office Assistant would no longer be enabled by default in future versions. Clippy was retiring. And there was much rejoicing.

Dave Farquhar

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Microsoft founded April 4, 1975

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 4, 2025April 3, 2025

On April 4, 1975, childhood friends Bill Gates, then 19, and Paul Allen, then 22, founded Microsoft, a company that makes computer software. Originally based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Microsoft relocated to Washington State in 1979 and from there grew into a major multinational technology corporation. In 1987, the year after Microsoft went public, Gates became the world’s youngest billionaire at age 31.

Dave Farquhar

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Anandtech made its debut April 3, 1997

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 3, 2025October 11, 2025

AnandTech was an online computer hardware magazine founded in April 1997 by then-14-year-old Anand Lal Shimpi. Shimpi remained CEO and editor-in-chief until August 2014, with Ryan Smith replacing him as editor-in-chief. The website was a source of hardware reviews for off-the-shelf components and exhaustive benchmarking, targeted towards computer-building enthusiasts. Its debut article, released April 3, 1997, was a review of AMD’s then-new K6 processor.

Dave Farquhar

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Troubleshooting long scan times in Tenable Security Center

Dave Farquhar security March 23, 2025March 23, 2025

I can never find this when I need it, so I am going to write up how I troubleshoot long scan times in Tenable Security Center. And if it helps you too, so be it. Usually when a Security Center scan takes forever, it’s because one or two hosts is responding much more slowly than the rest, holding up the entire scan. The scan won’t complete until every system finishes. Finding the slow hosts so you can troubleshoot them, or at least move them to their own scan, can help you keep the scan from dragging on forever.

Dave Farquhar

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Why we call software updates patches

Dave Farquhar security March 11, 2025June 6, 2026

It’s Patch Tuesday, the day Microsoft and Adobe grace us with new software updates to track, argue about, and maybe someday deploy to our computer systems. But have you ever wondered why we call software updates “patches?” What’s the meaning of the word patch?

Dave Farquhar

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What happened to CompUSA?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing February 27, 2025February 22, 2026

Readers of a certain age will remember CompUSA, a defunct big-box computer retailer. What happened to CompUSA? It went out of business, then came back as an undead brand, then went away again.

In some ways, CompUSA was the epitome of 1990s computer retail. It had huge big box stores with aisles of software and upgrades. It sold desktop computers, including its own house brand, Compudyne, manufactured for CompUSA by Acer. But the business model didn’t work as well in the 21st century.

Dave Farquhar

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