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[Varche]

I have tried to drag our house into the modern era and now have two pc's both running WIN XP and networked via a cable. The main PC runs Firefox already installed and XP Pro and AVG free.

For a few days I have had problems with the browser suddenly closing and worse haven't been able to post on OOF! This post is via the slave PC which is incredibly slow. ( I think something has taken over the PC whenever it has an open Internet connection- maybe to auto dial up the PopCap games site). I am thinking of installing Zone alarm on the slave to try and stop that happening. Good idea or not?

Back to the Firefox problem. I have tried "tools" and clearing cache, history etc to no avail. Any suggestions on how to fix it would be appreciated.

El Varche

[gwa]

Hi El Varche. I use FirefOx and no trouble at all. First thing that went through my mind is:
1 - Have you kept your AV up to date?
2 - Have you kept your XP up to date?
3 - Have you kept your Browser (FireFox) up to date
4 - (Just in case) Have you kept your Browser (IE) up to date

I would really think that 1 & 2 are the problem depending on what versions and/or SP. Best to update your AV & OS then do a full scan, and best to do it all PCs/Laptops (including memory sticks, ext drives and any CDs recently created/burnt) in the house.

[Varche]

Firefox is 3.0.1.

AVG is uptodate.

sadly I haven't kept the XP and IE upto date. I have a cursed slow form of dial up using a mobile SIM card in the "landline" phone for rural service. It would almost be a full time job trying to keep on top of it.

[jjleonard]

Firefox should be 3.0.5 - that's the latest version I'm using.

I'd recommend you ensure AVG is up to date and then get it to do a full scan of your PC - let it run, if you've got loads of files then it may take an hour or two to fully flush out your PC.

I'd certainly recommend that you use Spybot Search and Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html
To flush out any malware that's taken over your PC - it's a 14MB download though, so may be beyond your connection!

Also ensure that you are running Service Pack three on your XP machines - a massive download, but it may well be included on most popular PC magazine cover cds.

HTH  

[cem_devecioglu]

Was using AVG 7 until last week, system start to slow down.Thought it was from the TV card..Nope..then suddenly start playin up with virus warnings..I download AVG 8 , installed and had a full system scan and showed no virus, no worm :-/

Conclusion : they want me to install the never version

and additionally now the sound card dont work if I dont activate the tv card..what I see time to re-install but now I'm lazy, will wait until its completely donald

[TheBoy]

If you are that much in touch with your feminine side, and insist on using such a gay browser, please keep it fully up to date - FF has more holes than than a net, and more bugs than MI5.

[V6 Gix]

If you are that much in touch with your feminine side, and insist on using such a gay browser, please keep it fully up to date - FF has more holes than than a net, and more bugs than MI5.

Firefox has more vulnerabilities than IE, but I read an interesting article on it a while back: http://www.oreillynet.com/windows/blog/2005/09/is_firefox_less_secure_than_ie.html.

Makes interesting reading.

[jjleonard]

If you are that much in touch with your feminine side, and insist on using such a gay browser, please keep it fully up to date - FF has more holes than than a net, and more bugs than MI5.

  Knew you'd mention that sooner or later. Firefox is no worse than IE, IMO, provided the underlying system is up to scratch.

All opinions respected, however.  

[TheBoy]

If you are that much in touch with your feminine side, and insist on using such a gay browser, please keep it fully up to date - FF has more holes than than a net, and more bugs than MI5.

  Knew you'd mention that sooner or later. Firefox is no worse than IE, IMO, provided the underlying system is up to scratch.

All opinions respected, however.  

IE6 and 7 has been so heavily scrutinised by the hacking community, along with Windows, that most issues have probably been found and fixed.  FF is just coming up to enough popularity to interest the hackers, and its easy to find potential exploits.

IE is also integral to Windows Update, so patched within 1 day of MS releasing patch (assuming non-hooky copy of XP), FF uses a bit of a wanky system for updates.

[jerry]

 There has been quite a bit in the news lately about how poor IE is at responding to threats and how many viruses it attracts. As already mentioned, one of the main reasons for this is its sheer popularity. I'm no expert on a computer by any means but I have both IE and firefox and although I find IE easier to use (probably only because I'm used to it), I have noticed that my spyware picks up an awful lot more attacks on IE than it ever has on firefox and that firefox is also that bit quicker. I also read somewhere that one of the biggest security threats was people programming in for windows to "remember password", rather than entering passwords manually once on that particular site. This seems to make sense to me , although its far more convenient to let the pc remember, for those sites linked with anything that might be "sensitive" with private info (eg financial) I always enter the password manually.
                                                           jerry

[V6 Gix]

Apart from IE and Firefox, have a look at:

1 - Opera (http://www.opera.com/browser/)
2 - Safari (http://www.apple.com/safari/download/)

Never used either of them, but I've heard Opera is pretty good.

[TheBoy]

Apart from IE and Firefox, have a look at:

1 - Opera (http://www.opera.com/browser/)
2 - Safari (http://www.apple.com/safari/download/)

Never used either of them, but I've heard Opera is pretty good.

Opera used to be OK as a lightweight browser, but fallen behind.  Safari + Windows = some nasty blended attack vectors...

[Leomas]

Biggest issue with IE is you can't remove it so even if you do keep your preferred (non-IE) browser up to date, there is still a chance for IE to bugger it all up for you

rant over (for now)