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can't edit hosts file?



 
 
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  #31  
Old April 8th 18, 10:22 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default can't edit hosts file?

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"tesla sTinker" wrote

| Which is why we use pc tools firewall. It does not hide
| anything important as in the commys firewall of MS.
|
|
You use PC Tools firewall on Win7? I have v. 7 of that
but never got around to trying it. I'm curious what you
like about it and how you'd compare it to other options.

I gave up on ZA many years ago, when they started
letting MS call home by default on XP. (Before that I
used AtGuard, which was my all-time favorite, but they
sold it to Symantec, who of course ruined it and doubled
the price. Symantec set over 700 programs to be let
through their firewall by default. The result was a useless
product that got great reviews for its "ease of use".


I have uninstalled ZA. My system was playing up: "System" (PID 4) was
sometimes taking 25% (almost railing one core), Chrome (my secondary
browser) was getting so sluggish as to be unusable, and my Start button
was sometimes unresponsive. The only major thing I'd done was install
ZA. That's far from conclusive - but the system has been much more
stable since I took it out.

On XP I use Online Armor, which I find to be about
as good as I can expect, inasmuch as it warns me if
anything tries to go out and it allows me to make rules
fairly easily to block a process, or restrict a process to
specific ports.


On XP I used Kerio Personal Firewall (KPF) - I think 2.1.5. The last one
before they added bloat. Like your Armor, it warned me and was easy to
manage.

But they also sold out. I using v. 4.0.0.15 and I
understand that it was completely changed after that.


Kerio was bought by Sunbelt (though had already started to bloat before
that). It changed out of all recognition after that. Unfortunately, It
wouldn't work under 7, even the 32-bit version. I presume your Armor
wouldn't, either.

So I'm happy with my XP firewall but would be curious
about a better firewall on Win7 than Private Firewall.


Me too, except substitute ZA (though it _may_ not have been the
culprit). For me, "better" would mean simple to use, like my old KPF.

In the meantime, I think we'll have to tease John about
not noticing that ZA was blocking him from editing HOSTS.


(-:

Though, in his defense, I see that as one of the big
problems with a lot of software these days. AV wants to
be firewall and computer health software. Firewalls want
to be AV and email filters. Both of them want to monitor
downloads and control programs.


Yes, ZA was wanting to add something - I think AV - and AVG is
_certainly_ frequently on at me to add things (with a price tag).

It's hard to find software that just does the job well
and gets out of the way. Online Armor actually
has a lot of that crap, but I disable all except the
firewall itself. Many AV/Firewall programs won't allow
normal online operation with default settings, blocking
just about everything except known software.


I wouldn't mind that - you can soon train them (-:

One of them, Trendmicro, actually tracks people online.
I know that because I see it in my website server logs.
Someone downloads a ZIP from my site and immediately,
in less than a minute, Trendmicro downloads the same
ZIP from their site in Japan. I wonder if people realize
how intrusive all this "safety" is.


!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

782.55 - The Number of The Beast (including VAT)
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  #32  
Old April 8th 18, 10:48 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Auric__
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 295
Default can't edit hosts file?

Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 6 Apr 2018 05:00:06 -0000 (UTC), "Auric__"
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

[snip]
I'm not sure why Bob mentioned uppercase.


In older systems -- 9x and NT3/4 -- the sample hosts files were
uppercase. (HOSTS.SAM) Shrug.


On my virgin Windows 98SE VM, it's called "Hosts.sam". Only the first
letter is capitalized. ;-)


IIRC, 9x systems had a setting to do that with all-caps filenames. Perhaps
it's an Explorer setting. My 95 & 98SE systems both show "HOSTS.SAM". [shrug]

--
Hello, gentlemen! I have journeyed here to take your lives.
  #33  
Old April 9th 18, 03:52 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default can't edit hosts file?

"tesla sTinker" wrote


| version 7 is a clean firewall that permits everything.
| And that, is why I use it.

I installed it and set it to block all system processes. I
then tried to run Firefox. It should have asked me whether
to allow FF online. It didn't. So I set up a rule. It still was
blocked. I set it to allow all in/out. It still was blocked.
I can only get online if I disable the PC Tools firewall.
Am I missing something?


  #34  
Old April 10th 18, 01:08 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Bob_S[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 149
Default can't edit hosts file?

"Symantec
Which is a virus company that is not worth a dam.
They have all stopped doing things honestly, and for that reason,
we do not upgrade anything. Unless it does not work right.
Version 7 works.... The others, and we have Private Firewall as well,
are just not up to par.

snip......


Some strong statements - can you back them up with some facts to enlighten
us?

If just personal opinion - well we all have those but when you slam a
product or a company, how about telling us why. Otherwise you come across
as just venting because you didn't understand their software, it wasn't
right for your system(s) or just had a bad experience and still hold a
grudge.

I did state in my post that their product used to be a resource hog but no
longer. I have been using their products for years (both personally and on
clients systems) and they are one of the best available today. If you think
a free product is better then think about who pays the guy's that make the
product you're using and see if free is really free and has it been tested
by a legitimate lab.

No, not trying to start a troll war here but using a free AV product for
home use is one thing and quite another when it's used in a commercial
environment. Check out Symantec and compare them to whoever makes that free
software you're entrusting you security to.

--


Bob S.

  #35  
Old April 10th 18, 02:39 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default can't edit hosts file?

"Bob_S" wrote
| "Symantec
| Which is a virus company that is not worth a dam.

| Some strong statements - can you back them up with some facts to enlighten
| us?

| Check out Symantec and compare them to whoever makes that free
| software you're entrusting you security to.
|

I don't know about tesla, but I'm happy to
"enlighten" anyone who might consider Symantec.

Long ago I had their system works. It was a pig.
The "doctor" came up with all sorts of things that
needed to be fixed. Similar to Malwarebytes today:
It finds things that sound important but in general
they're not. Things like orphan CLSID entries in the
Registry that do neither harm nor good.

System Works has the dubious distinction of being
the first program I ever saw that tried to call home
during install but wouldn't tell me that was what it
was doing.

My favorite all-time firewall was AtGuard. Symantec
licensed it, literally doubled the price, and turned it to
junk by setting over 700 programs to go through by
default.

I once used Clean Sweep from Quarterdeck. It was
a great program that could package any program install
into a single file for transfer to another computer, or
as a backup.
Symantec bought the company. I don't remember
what they did with it. If I remember correctly they
turned it into a useless backup program.

At one time I had Drive Image from PowerQuest. It
was a very good DOS-level program for making and
restoring disk images. Symantec bought it and turned
out a bloated .Net monstrosity for system backup.

In my experience I've seen Symantec act as nothing
more than a parasite, buying up the best companies,
then using a big marketing budget, combined with stripping
functionality, to make big sales to the kind of suckers
who pay extra for things they see on TV. Though I
shouldn't say suckers. Most people don't know how to find
out about products, so they get exploited by the big
marketers. It's like the women who pay a rate of hundreds
of dollars per gallon for special "age reversing" moisturizing
cream in fancy bottles, which are nevertheless nothing
but mineral oil with water and an emulsifier, combined
with lots of marketing. Similarly, Symantec is good at
making fancy bottles to sell 30 cents worth of mineral
oil for $16.

Their trick is to water down the software so that
it's foolproof. Very important, very official, extra
high tech software that does nothing much useful.
It's a very clever idea. A good firewall requires configuration.
But a useless firewall that lets everything through appears
to be very easy to use, thus getting great reviews from
the lapdog tech media.

I don't know what Symantec is pushing these days
for system backup. I use an amazing little program called
BootIt that cost me something like $39, could fit on a floppy,
and handles all aspects of disk imaging, partitioning, and
multi-booting. I'd be willing to bet that whatever Symantec
offers is a gigantic, bloated mess for more than twice the
price, with very snazzy window decorations in the GUI.

So what about you? You suggest checking out Symantec
and you're critical of someone being negative about them
without backing it up, yet I don't see where you detailed any
particular products of theirs that you think are good, and why
you think so.





  #36  
Old April 10th 18, 04:47 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Bob_S[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 149
Default can't edit hosts file?


Mayayana,

Wow - quite the rant. Sounds like you've had a bad time over software
acquisitions for quite awhile. I can understand your displeasure but hey,
things change even if you don't and they do move on without you.

You don't like Symantec - fine. But as you said, you don't know what
Symantec has these days. You can download their free trials and see for
yourself whether it suits you or not. I believe you'll find they dropped a
lot of stuff and cleaned up their offerings with the new management in the
past few years.

They do have quite a track record:
https://www.symantec.com/about/corpo...iness-overview

They are involved in insuring their products meet the latest standards:
https://www.symantec.com/about/corpo...ile/technology

And they have a global research organization Symantec Research Labs:
https://www.symantec.com/about/corpo.../research-labs

And no, I don't own any of their stock that I'm aware of...

All in all, they have the resources behind them that makes products as good
or better than any in the industry. Do they make mistakes, sure and like
all companies trying to stay ahead in technology - they will make more in
the future.

But for now, their latest products work very well and they're not resource
hogs.

Bob S.

  #37  
Old April 10th 18, 01:12 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default can't edit hosts file?

"Bob_S" wrote

| Wow - quite the rant.

Not a rant. Details. Didn't you ask for details?
When it comes to Symantec I just happen to have
a lot of details, because they ruined a lot of my
favorite software.

| Sounds like you've had a bad time over software
| acquisitions for quite awhile.

That's quite a jump in logic. I don't like Symantec
so I must be a ranting crank who can't seem to have
good luck with software? How did you manage to get
religious about something like Symantec? I expect that
from AppleSeeds. Maybe even some MS Office fans.
But... Symantec? It must be those snazzy yellow and
black suits that make them look like a cross between
James Bond and a sleek bee in a Broadway musical.

I haven't had an especially bad time with software.
In fact, the ones I listed were all mainstays and
I considered them to be the best available -- until
Symantec bought them.

And as I noted, I've been delighted with BootIt
for years now. I just don't like Symantec. And I have
lots of reasons. Did I mention that?

| You don't like Symantec - fine. But as you said, you don't know what
| Symantec has these days.

And apparently neither do you. You say people shouldn't
use anything free over a choice like Symantec, which has
"labs", whatever that means. Do you really buy into all this
pseudo-science marketing by these companies? No one needs
a "lab" to investigate computer viruses. They're not the same
thing as disease viruses.

And what's your evidence for the amazingness of Symantec?
Nothing but links to Symantec marketing webpages? All I
asked was that if you're going to tell people what they should
use then you should back that up... as you were asking tesla
to do. A simple link or two to comparative surveys would be
fine. Something that shows Symantec's high-priced spread is
justifiably better than free options.
Since the free options are generally given away as part of
a marketing plan, I don't see any reason to think they're inferior.
If you try Acme Feee at home and don't like it then you're
not likely to buy Acme Paid for your business.

Personally I don't use any AV and haven't for many
years. I often install something basic for friends without
experience who I help. In that case I'm looking for
something free that stays out of the way. Just enough
to notice unusual activity and warn them. I regard the
whole idea as grossly outdated and the software itself
tends to be a resource hog. Not just Symantec's. We're
talking about a program that wants to scan every file
touched, to compare byte patterns to *millions* of
stored patterns from collected malware. (Byte patterns
that need updating several times per day. When the idea
of virus signatures started out they needed updating
once per month.)
And if you touch that file again in 5 minutes it will be
scanned again. The whole approach has become untenable.

AV is also a privacy/security risk in itself. For example, I've
noticed that people who use Trendmicro get followed
online. Someone downloads a ZIP from my website. Within
a minute, my server logs show TM in Japan has downloaded
the same ZIP. Every move is being reported home. Should
we trust *any* company to do that? Well... OK... Facebook
can probably be trusted.

The worse AV gets, the more there are also false positives.
I have at least one program I wrote that set off Avira.
Someone wrote to tell me. So I installed Avira. Sure enough.
It even had a made-up, scary sounding name for my "malware".
I'd apparently infested a number of my compilations. I found
that if I compiled it with different options it wouldn't set off
Avira. I sure am glad I didn't *pay* for that kind of genius.

Karl Peterson, a former MS MVP, once wrote an article
about a similar situation. After a lot of searching he figured
out that the AV was set off by the fact that he'd hard-coded
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" into his executable. Of course, I
could "rant" all day about this.

But in my experience those are typical examples. If
you're going to bank online and enable javascript
everywhere then you're basically a hayseed in a
whorehouse and some thick latex is in order. Otherwise...

| You can download their free trials and see for
| yourself whether it suits you or not. I believe you'll find they dropped a
| lot of stuff and cleaned up their offerings with the new management in the
| past few years.

So you also don't have any facts to back up your
position? No specific features you find notable? No
independent testing to link to? You expect us to
research it simply on your say so?!



  #38  
Old April 11th 18, 02:13 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Bob_S[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 149
Default can't edit hosts file?

"Mayayana" wrote in message news

"Bob_S" wrote

| Wow - quite the rant.

Not a rant. Details. Didn't you ask for details?
When it comes to Symantec I just happen to have
a lot of details, because they ruined a lot of my
favorite software.

| Sounds like you've had a bad time over software
| acquisitions for quite awhile.

That's quite a jump in logic. I don't like Symantec
so I must be a ranting crank who can't seem to have
good luck with software? How did you manage to get
religious about something like Symantec? I expect that
from AppleSeeds. Maybe even some MS Office fans.
But... Symantec? It must be those snazzy yellow and
black suits that make them look like a cross between
James Bond and a sleek bee in a Broadway musical.

I haven't had an especially bad time with software.
In fact, the ones I listed were all mainstays and
I considered them to be the best available -- until
Symantec bought them.

And as I noted, I've been delighted with BootIt
for years now. I just don't like Symantec. And I have
lots of reasons. Did I mention that?

| You don't like Symantec - fine. But as you said, you don't know what
| Symantec has these days.

And apparently neither do you. You say people shouldn't
use anything free over a choice like Symantec, which has
"labs", whatever that means. Do you really buy into all this
pseudo-science marketing by these companies? No one needs
a "lab" to investigate computer viruses. They're not the same
thing as disease viruses.

And what's your evidence for the amazingness of Symantec?
Nothing but links to Symantec marketing webpages? All I
asked was that if you're going to tell people what they should
use then you should back that up... as you were asking tesla
to do. A simple link or two to comparative surveys would be
fine. Something that shows Symantec's high-priced spread is
justifiably better than free options.
Since the free options are generally given away as part of
a marketing plan, I don't see any reason to think they're inferior.
If you try Acme Feee at home and don't like it then you're
not likely to buy Acme Paid for your business.

Personally I don't use any AV and haven't for many
years. I often install something basic for friends without
experience who I help. In that case I'm looking for
something free that stays out of the way. Just enough
to notice unusual activity and warn them. I regard the
whole idea as grossly outdated and the software itself
tends to be a resource hog. Not just Symantec's. We're
talking about a program that wants to scan every file
touched, to compare byte patterns to *millions* of
stored patterns from collected malware. (Byte patterns
that need updating several times per day. When the idea
of virus signatures started out they needed updating
once per month.)
And if you touch that file again in 5 minutes it will be
scanned again. The whole approach has become untenable.

AV is also a privacy/security risk in itself. For example, I've
noticed that people who use Trendmicro get followed
online. Someone downloads a ZIP from my website. Within
a minute, my server logs show TM in Japan has downloaded
the same ZIP. Every move is being reported home. Should
we trust *any* company to do that? Well... OK... Facebook
can probably be trusted.

The worse AV gets, the more there are also false positives.
I have at least one program I wrote that set off Avira.
Someone wrote to tell me. So I installed Avira. Sure enough.
It even had a made-up, scary sounding name for my "malware".
I'd apparently infested a number of my compilations. I found
that if I compiled it with different options it wouldn't set off
Avira. I sure am glad I didn't *pay* for that kind of genius.

Karl Peterson, a former MS MVP, once wrote an article
about a similar situation. After a lot of searching he figured
out that the AV was set off by the fact that he'd hard-coded
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" into his executable. Of course, I
could "rant" all day about this.

But in my experience those are typical examples. If
you're going to bank online and enable javascript
everywhere then you're basically a hayseed in a
whorehouse and some thick latex is in order. Otherwise...

| You can download their free trials and see for
| yourself whether it suits you or not. I believe you'll find they dropped
a
| lot of stuff and cleaned up their offerings with the new management in
the
| past few years.

So you also don't have any facts to back up your
position? No specific features you find notable? No
independent testing to link to? You expect us to
research it simply on your say so?!


Mayayana,

Oh boy - I think your tin foil hat just slipped a bit.

After reading the above, it would be futile to even try and convince you to
try something new, so I won't.

But here's something just for you to read that’s reasonably up to date (Dec
2017):

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus...-22.11-174816/

This ends this thread for me but please feel free to keep on ranting (it's
good for a chuckle) - but please do put that tin foil hat back on straight.

There ya go, that looks much better...;-)
--


Bob S.

 




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