antivirus Archives

Entry-level troubleshooting

Dave Farquhar Hardware June 15, 2012November 3, 2025antivirus, Ars Technica, capacitors, dell, hp, IBM, power button, troubleshooting

Ars Technica offers a very good, brief guide to troubleshooting computer hardware. Being two pages long, it doesn’t tell you everything, but includes some good tricks, including one I don’t always remember to tell people. To fully discharge a device, unplug it from the wall, remove the battery if it has one, then press and hold down the power button for 10-15 seconds. This discharges any power that could be lingering in the capacitors inside. Read more

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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Short takes, 5 Jun 2012

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized June 5, 2012November 3, 2025antivirus, Ars Technica, firefox, networking equipment, New Firefox

I’m positively uninspired this morning, trying to recover from a weekend of the most boring writing I’ve ever done in my life–something that, mercifully, only a small handful of tortured souls will ever have to see and read–so I’ll do some short takes.

Dave Farquhar

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I can save you $99

Dave Farquhar Windows May 19, 2012November 3, 2025antivirus, excel, Media Player, Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft is willing to install a clean copy of Windows in its retail stores on any PC for a flat fee of $99. (Windows license not included, of course.) They’ll also optionally include Microsoft’s Windows Live Essentials programs, the ad-supported starter editions of Word and Excel, Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus, and Zune media player software.
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Dave Farquhar

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Things I wish everyone knew about home Mac security

Dave Farquhar Macintosh, security May 18, 2012antivirus, apple, avast, computer security, cybersecurity, firewall, mac os x, Microsoft Office, os x, passwords

On Wednesday evening, I wrote about basic computer security from a Windows-centric perspective. I knew some people who needed help in a hurry, and given there was a 90% or so chance they were running Windows, I took that route.

Some of my buddies who use Macs passed it along. And much of what I said then does apply, but I’d like to clarify a few of those points.
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Dave Farquhar

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Things I wish everyone knew about home computer security

Dave Farquhar security May 16, 2012December 1, 2015antivirus, boxcar, certifications, computer security, firewall, malwarebytes, Microsoft Security Essentials, passwords, spam, spyware, vista, WEP, Windows XP, yahoo

I’m a security professional by trade, with two certifications. I’m not responsible for defending your computer networks, but I want your networks to be secure. There’s a really simple reason for that. If your computer and your network is secure, then it isn’t attacking mine. Or anyone else’s.

Several fellow subscribers to a train-related interest group that I like got hacked recently, and have been sending out spam messages. They’ve received a lot of advice in the hours since. Some of it has been good, and some not as good. So I tried to think of some things that people could do in about 30 minutes to keep the crooks at bay.

Incidentally, the computer crooks won’t be going away. Computer crime happens because the criminals can make more money doing that than doing something legal. The only way to make it stop is to make it too hard, so that getting a real job becomes more profitable. You won’t solve that problem in 30 minutes, but if we all take that single step down that road, we’ll make the world that much safer. So, with that, let’s roll up our sleeves. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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One in five Macs has malware–but read the fine print

Dave Farquhar Macintosh, security, Viruses April 24, 2012antivirus, excel, excel spreadsheet, malware

Sophos claimed today that 20% of the people who’ve installed their free Mac antivirus has malware. That’s not altogether surprising, but it’s also not nearly as big of a problem as it sounds.

One in 36 systems has Mac malware, which means the Mac has an infection that could actually be harming the system itself. That number is low but believable. In my experience, the people who seek out antivirus software are usually the ones who need it the least.
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Dave Farquhar

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What’s going on with Macintosh security?

Dave Farquhar Macintosh, security, Viruses April 22, 2012antivirus, apple, computer security, mac os x, macintosh, malware, McAfee, Microsoft Security Essentials, os x, symantec

The latest figures I’ve read say there are perhaps a half-million infected Macintoshes still floating around out there, an improvement from the high of 600,000 that I was seeing a few weeks ago, but probably not what Apple had hoped after releasing its most recent fix.

I argued three weeks ago that the end of the innocence was either here or very near. I’ll argue now that it’s gone: There are now 250 known Macintosh OS X viruses in existence. In 2003 there were none. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Acer Aspire One 722 review

Dave Farquhar Hardware April 6, 2012November 22, 2016acer, amd, antivirus, intel, McAfee, Microsoft Security Essentials, netbooks, windows 7

I set up an Acer Aspire One 722 netbook this week. This is my Acer Aspire One 722 review. I imagine the return rates on these things is horrendous, because the out-of-box experience is pathetic.

This one won’t be going back though. Tune it up, and it’s an adequate performer. It’s still a netbook–all that talk of the AMD C-50 and C-60 chips delivering Celeron-like performance was just rumor–but it can match an Atom’s CPU performance and delivers better graphics performance than Intel. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Don’t call the war on hackers unwinnable

Dave Farquhar security March 31, 2012May 25, 2020antivirus, apple, Bill Gates, cissp, john c dvorak, oracle, passwords, Pearl Harbor, spam

John C Dvorak asks what war we’re waging on hackers. While war may not be the best choice of words, because it’s not exactly a conventional war, there’s no question there’s something going on, and we’re not winning it right now.

The latest salvo is that someone in China is building a botnet using Macintoshes. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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End of the innocence for Mac security

Dave Farquhar Macintosh, security March 30, 2012Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, antivirus, apple, firefox, mac os x, macintosh, malicious code, malware, Malware Domains, microsoft word, office 2007, os x, pdf files, spyware, trojan horse, vector, vulnerability, yahoo

Antivirus vendor Kapersky has identified a new trojan horse targetting Macintoshes. It spreads a botnet based somewhere in China via an infected Microsoft Word document, typically sent as an e-mail attachment.

The spin is that if you don’t use Word on your Mac, you’re safe. That’s true–this week. But going forward, it’s going to take more than that. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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