Well received the radio and hobbies CD. My windows 10 computer is crook video part of mother board expired.
I decided to use the windows 7 laptop. OK it needed PDF viewing software with my other devices have Adobe on them. Tried to download this and every time I tried the result combined McPhee antvirous package with it and the result was I could not download Adobe. I hate all these anti virus packages that freely take over your machine I am sure the problem was the unwanted anti virus package that took over. I deleted both and found PDF reader for widows 7. This loaded OK and works fine. Even the free Avast anti virus package is bad every time you do anything it warns you some baddie is out there watching your every move and wants to scan everything then directing you to another useless package I don't want.
Anyway it is all working now.
Regards Jim

G'day Jim,

Yes generally when downloading free adobe software they offer McAfee antivirus with the download. Before you download the file you have to untick the box that includes McAfee with the download.

I did not see that bit. I have no idea why anyone would want it.

They count on you not reading it carefully. It's a common trap with "free" software - it just gets paid in a different way.

The thing is I find most of those anti virus packages are as bad as a virus they just stop you from using it and use scare tactics so you will even buy a more nasty package. This is my thoughts on them it may not be the case.

I only use one AV software - Windows Defender. It doesn't get signature updates as often as the third party vendors offer but it just works without bogging down the computer and hogging CPU resources. The last time I used a third party AV package was when I had CA's Inoculan installed, complete with the little animated ECG waveform in the system tray. That was a long time ago.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Some of my computers use Defender and some use McAfee - the corporate fully-featured version, not the shitty free one.

I have no idea why anyone would want it.

... and that includes the recently deceased John McAfee himself:

QUOTE: In 1987, [John McAfee] wrote the first commercial anti-virus software, founding McAfee Associates to sell his creation. He resigned in 1994 and sold his remaining stake in the company. McAfee became the company's most vocal critic in later years, urging consumers to uninstall the company's anti-virus software, which he characterised as bloatware. He disavowed the company's continued use of his name in branding, a practice that has persisted in spite of a short-lived corporate rebrand attempt under Intel ownership.

Yes, you have to be careful with downloads packed with "freebies" that you don't need or want.

My AV of choice is Avast -- the paid-for edition.

I am with Brad.
I have never had any "anti virus" applications on any of my personal computers.
Thats about 40 years of owning computers and small systems.
There is no point, just talk to anybody in the industry.


Most computers said to have a virus actually have a electronic fault.
When the spark plug on your lawnmower is shorted from a bit of carbon you dont say it wont run because has a virus!
You fix the plug.
When one of the 1 million circuits or bits in a PC gone wrong it is not a virus!
You fix the CPU/RAM/card problem.

Evil people now dont sit there writing viruses to infect computers to annoy users like they used to in the old days pre Y2000.
They now HACK systems or individuals to either make money or follow some flat earth anti big buisness anti government anti everything ideal.

McAfee and similar had a product that attended to a nerd/weirdo problem back then, the problem does not exist now so the product is not needed.
What really keeps any system operator on their toes is the bloody SPAM paralysing your system with rubbish and the important application to use is the filtering systems to weed out the real data from the crap!

The last time I was involved with a buisness system about 90% of the incoming port traffic was SPAM.
Glad I am retired now and only have to worry about having my bank accounts hacked by remote control.
Fixing the operator habits has eliminated that worry.

Fred.

Thank you all again for your replies.
I guess the biggest worry would be hacking the bank account, the windows 7 computer has no accounts on it. If someone gets your ip address firstly I don't know what that is. Does it only belong to that computer or is it associated with the email address and can be used against you on your other devices such as tablets?
Sorry for the dumb questions I still really belong in the last century.
Fred what do you mean you fixed the operator habits?
Are tablets more safe. I used to have an apple mac computer and I did not have to worry about such things but the screen died lost most of its pixels I cannot now afford another, and one of my tablets is an Ipad 2 I love this one but now is old and will not accept the constantly updated apps. Like the Apple computer I cannot afford the luxury of another and I am limited to the bargain basement rubbish.
Regards Jim Braddock.

A computer is just like a building and each one has an address. The computer this website is hosted on is located at the Internet Protocol (IP) address 203.132.92.109, which is mapped to vintage-radio.com.au on the Domain Name System (DNS). Computers are programmed to only understand numbers but people remember words more easily, so the DNS lets us type words in dot notation to get to a server that connects with an IP address.

If you open Bing and type "my ip" it will bring up a page which shows you your own IP address, or at least the one provided to you by your Internet Service Provider.

As for computers, none are any safer than the next one. Any talk to the contrary is a load of rubbish, despite the loyalty that a few hold to certain operating systems and hardware platforms, each one of them has strengths and weaknesses and there is no such thing as an unhackable computer. Trust me - I've been on the Internet for around 30 years and have watched all the petty debates and most of the claims relating to security are completely baseless. The priority for you is probably this - select what you feel is easiest for you to use; whether it be Windows, Apple, Linux, FreeBSD, Chromebook, etc; and then select a model that fits your budget. Job done.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Hi Jim, "operator habits".

Very simply:
I allowed, for convenience, one of my PC's to automatically make a list of my log in identifications and passwords.
That way you just click on a icon and the computor opens up the web site you want.
If you are not careful windows will do that for you anyway.
DO NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN.
That opened up my PC to whole world. Just the same as if I stood on the street corner and handed out printed copies of my pass words for anybody interested!

Part of the hack performed on me was to remotely control my PC and, either access my web sites , OR, open up the lists in windows and download and use my ID and log in details from their PC.
Once armed with that they operated my bank account without my knowledge.
The bank has no idea who is operating the account, just so long as the ID, and log in, is correct.
The hack also requires control of your device that ok's a bank transfer (the secret number you get say on your smartphone).

It is a very involved hack that takes a lot of work for a hacker to achieve but if they "luck in" by controlling your PC and being able to silently divert your smartphone you are a cooked duck.

The banks are are in a real panic about it, "identity theft".

You cannot stop a PC or tablet or phone from storing your web activitys in its memory.
But you can stop the device from storing the details in an "easy to access" file any one can open with a couple of clicks on their remote control keyboard!

Do not worry excessively because a lot of unfortunate stars have to align for the hack to work and it can fall over very easily and not work.
I had a security firm show me how the hacking works, I was gob smacked at how it was done and how porous your PC, phone and the banking system is.

The action I had to take was to simply pull the hard drives physically out of any PC in my home network and replace them and starting each PC from fresh. Also setting my smartphone to default dumping all stored data and starting from fresh. Thats pretty daunting and requires back up of any data and re-installing all applications from untainted sources. The old hard drives are locked in a safe never to be used again except for forensic use.

Once this was done I now log in manually to any important sites like banks using the old ID's but with new passwords that are absolute jibberish. Also be wary and simply do not respond directly to any email, SMS or phone call from any individual or organisation.

I have had no further attacks on my combank accounts since changing my internet habits.

Fred.

Thank you all once again for your input. Thanks Brad for your explanation on IP and Fred for explaining what you did.
As you said Fred a out of lot of stars having to align to get you get into trouble. I will live in hope that it won't happen.
Regards Jim

I don't let browsers remember my passwords. I have a file with account usernames and partial passwords - only the first three characters of what are very obscure passwords are listed. This hides the true password and also its length which makes this file useless to an intruder but allows me to remember what password is needed where.

The only time I've been tricked, and I did manage to reverse the 'damage' was when Edge thought it was doing me a favour by storing credit card details. I don't care how trusted or secure a computer gets - that is one thing I will not do. Sorry Microsoft - we've been good mates for 30 years but that's where the line gets drawn.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Re Post # 2: Mcafee will invite you to install their antivirus with the adobe software, even if you are already running their antivirus.