Tarun

No. You never give your password to anyone. If this is an administrator of your company/network/IT then they can get access without needing to know your password. If it's a work issued password, they should still have access to it. Asking for it seems a bit odd in my opinion.

A connection to 0.0.0.0 is still a connection that is used. Those numbers are excessively high... Source: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc758108%28v=ws.10%29.aspx There are so many things wrong with using this. It also causes problems with other software. Comodo antivirus, System Mechanic and others were listed. Many of these sites foolishly tell you to disable the DNS Cache service. You should never alter a Microsoft service. Stock settings work fine and these "optimizations" are just myths. Also, the Hosts file is loaded into your memory (RAM) at startup, another unnecessary performance degradation. Microsoft has said flat out: The DNS client service optimizes performance. There's a knowledge base that details this, and I'm more than certain Microsoft knows how their services and files perform. Also, what's the point of using a Hosts file improperly when there are addons and such designed for use with browsers? All of these things I'm covering are already detailed in more comprehensive detail on my wiki.

Having to parse through tens of thousands of lines in the hosts file. No matter what web browser or web service you use. Every time you access the web your computer has to filter through all these lines. This is a performance degradation on the browser and your computer. Every single time you load a website it has to filter through to match these things. Redirecting to your local machine/localhost leaves a persisting connection. You have to wait for these persistant connections to time out on your local machine, too. Unecessary activity for the machine and the network. 127.0.0.1 myfakemaliciousdomain.com::1 myfakemaliciousdomain.comWhy degrade your network performance too, by having connections that have to open and then wait to time out solely to block advertisements and malicious software? Many things in the hosts files are also not kept up to date. Numerous domains are expired yet take up an entry in the hosts file. Back before the Internet became popular, the hosts file was a text document to act as a DNS. Now we have DNS services to the hosts file is very rarely used for these purposes unless people are having an issue loading a website due to a slow DNS refresh/update. The hosts file is a file used by computers to map IP addresses to domain names.

The biggest misinformation I see in this thread is the misuse of the Hosts file. The Hosts file is not meant to be used as a blacklist for malicious domains. This article is a good read. Blocking malware and advertisements safely. - remember to whitelist MSFN to show your support.

This article may also be of use to you.

That actually says a lot! Importing old Firefox data caused an issue.Installed Ghostery and told it to block Gravatar.Ding. This sounds like the issue (or at least part of it) right there to me. Take a look at this part of your User Control Panel - namely, Change Photo.... Notice how you can either upload an avatar or use one from Gravatar if you have an account there? Now, I believe even you mentioned your avatar loading earlier when you tried Pale Moon. Since you're not blocking Gravatar that's actually why. Gravatar - Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site? I have IP.Board on my site as well. I believe that the API checks for an avatar first, and if one isn't found it may also check Gravatar. I could be mistaken though. To me, that sounds like the root of the issue. Let me know what you find. You also mention that your Firefox has data from 3.0. That's an easy fix without needing to reinstall anything, I mentioned it earlier: You should also go into Firefox and go to Help (press Alt to bring up the menu bar) > Troubleshooting Information > Reset Firefox... Additionally, I would strongly, strongly recommend ditching Norton. While they're not as bad as they used to be they're still pretty bad. I'd be worth getting either MSE or avast, both are excellent free anti-virus/anti-malware solutions.

Sadly, that's not really fixing the problem; that's simply avoiding the problem. It really doesn't contribute any real solution should anyone else experience a similar issue. For what it's worth, you're still using Firefox. Pale Moon is just a x64 compiled custom version. I do agree about how silly the rapid release cycle is but you can thank Google and Chrome for that. The UI changes are nice and very intuitive, allowing for more screen real estate however. I have a feeling the problem is client side and I was willing to work with you on getting to the root of the issue and getting it resolved. Oh well, happy browsing.

We're trying to rule out any and all possibilities. Also, the theme should not matter. You're trying to fix a problem. Don't risk creating more potentials issues. You should also go into Firefox and go to Help > Troubleshooting Information > Reset Firefox...

Update your Firefox to the latest version. List every addon you have installed (disabled or not). If you're using a firewall try disabling it temporarily. Check for anything in your HOSTS file that shouldn't be in there (it should be stock settings) and also uninstall toolbars (such as that Norton garbage) to stop it from messing with your browser.

You guys know there is a sticky post here to help you sort these issues. Be sure to read these things over. They're pinned and important to read for a reason.

Firefox Nightly x64 builds. I've always found the Fanboy filters to be far too overly aggressive. They also used to block a lot of images and other things that were totally safe on websites (recommended/affiliate websites - basically friend type websites).

I believe they mean the definitions that a user can download will always be a bit out of date compared to getting them from within the app itself. It's always been like that since they frequently update their definitions and it takes time to pack them into an installer and upload it.

Just because that file was found by MBAM does not mean it came with it. MBAM has been updated and has improved vastly in 2.0. The definitions had been updated to include that file and it's hash. When it found it as a match it had probably been there for a while. That's the beauty of my Anti-Malware Toolkit by the way. I make sure to get everything from either the official source or official mirror.

AVG is known for having issues. It's wiped system32 several times in the past. This looks like a false positive, and yet another dangerous one by AVG. I honestly would recommend uninstalling AVG completely and using the AVG Uninstall Tool afterwards. Use something like MSE or Avast and see how you fair with that.

Exactly this. That amount of "security" is borderline paranoia and dangerously overkill. What I find most laughable is he says it's about security, yet he's using Comodo...

JorgeA, check your Notification Options and Followed Content.

You said you contacted xper via PM yet he was unresponsive. You could have contacted the forum staff to have the request forwarded. All these bumps were unnecessary. Saying your PMs were ignored is also quite disrespectful and in poor taste. xper has been extremely busy with things here on the forums recently. He may also have been busy with real life matters, I hope you took that into consideration. Kel, you need to be more respectful if you like this forum so well. Negative comments do not work in your favor for getting things that you would like. Keep that in mind. I'm locking this thread and I will forward it to xper. It's his forum and ultimately his decision.

Ahh way back in February, I know what versions of the forum software they were on then. Most likely we're on the latest, which means a majority - if not all - of those issues have been fixed. IPS made a massive number of fixes to the editor and the issues that people reported. It was a huge bugfix for just the editor alone so that post on Wincert may not even be relevant at all considering how it's from February and this release we're on now came out around the start of June.

I'll type it out and bold where code is on the editor: B I U S X2 X2 Unordered Ordered Link Unlink Image Code Quote Twitter... (etc...) As far as not showing quotes, things are still being upgraded and fixed, so it was probably a hiccup. Yes, it was available on the older version. As I mentioned though, IPS removes this based on how there was a high lack of usage. Now you have something far more useful. Topic tags. The older theme may have looked cleaner, but it really was not. The new one is designed to be more friendly, load faster and be more Web 2.0. It's also better for the site overall when spiders crawl the site. It won't try to get all the images that were in the previous one because most everything is styled with CSS and uses lightweight, optimizied and very small png images. You can still insert them just fine. You can even type them out like so: (code)my code(/code), etc. and the editor will convert it on post. Remember, this is a much better editor, a WYSIWYG editior. The thing is that next to no one really used the topic descriptions. They were replaced with the far more useful tag system so that people can also find posts related to their interests. I've been using the tag system on my forums since it was introduced and it's really so much nicer than the descriptions. I honestly forgot all about the descriptions until it was mentioned here. Not sure why they got rid of the option or if there's a way to bring it back. I used to use something a bit higher years ago but then just stopped caring and went with the defaults because it made things a bit easier. Especially if someone referenced something on another page without quoting it. Obviously it changed between when I posted the fix and when you read it. But what point is there listing off bugs when things are still being worked on and fixed? I say this because you've already commented on how the theme had changed for example. Sometimes it's best to wait a few days for the dust to settle while keeping notes of what may have been a one time bug. That's because of the built-in SEO now added into the forums. So all the web spiders are crawling and updating the page metadata and more. It'll be like this for a bit, but the loads are faster. See? xper just needs time to fix these things in the upgrade. I noticed it was adding the codes as well last night. That was a minor hiccup where we lost usage of the editor completely along with dropdown menus and other script items. It's been fixed since. Also, I had no issues with bold on/off. But I'm on Firefox. Perhaps it's related to Opera? Yeah it's all good. Feedback and bugs reports are great, just need some time for the dust to settle. True. If the pageloads are slow right now it's because the previous version of the forum software we were using here did nothave the SEO integrated yet. Now it does so the spiders are crawling the pages and updating a lot.

The topic description was actually removed years ago. The key reasons were because 1. They were either never used, and 2. They were redundant topic titles when used. As a fellow webmaster who also used this board software, I agree completely with the decision to remove them. Both of their points were very valid. How exactly is this a problem? You've got the default settings. Yes it is... Click your Username at the top right and then click My Settings. xper just made these upgrades. Give him time. If you don't like the theme you could also try to make one and submit it. Nothing at all wrong with the default theme. It's crisp, clean, and has a nice professional look. It's also much lighter so that it will load faster and perform better. I really don't understand why you're complaining and nitpicking so excessively much over changes that help the website overall. Less things to load means faster page loadtimes and less stress on the server. Many things are styled with CSS and look better than png/gif images. These badges will come back. xper's working on it. These tags still work. Can you instead name a post where you're seeing this issue so that the staff can try and reproduce it? That would be much more helpful. I can't really comment much on this since a custom theme is in use. Try clearing your cache to allow for any fixes to get applied. It's there, it's the < > icon in the editor. Hover it and you'll see it says Code. No issues here. Where the cursor blinks is where you're supposed to stay when you type. It's not supposed to go to the top left... I'm having no issues with the editor here at all. Everything is working fine. Perhaps you should tell us what you're running if you're having all these problems. Be patient. An upgrade just happened. You have to remember that people run these forums and it takes time to upgrade and resolve any issues that may appear.

This project has ended. Closing thread. For best results as of early 2013: Microsoft Security Essentials for Anti-Virus. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for anti-malware/anti-spyware. Avoid registry cleaners or anything that boasts it will "boost performance".

There is no "solution for gamers" anywhere in this thread. Steam is a perfectly safe application. Spreading this kind of paranoia only stems to worry uses about something that's safe. If you don't like Microsoft products (since you're so very high on M$ abbreviations, and so forth) why bother using their products at all? There are options out there. Mac and Linux for example.

Try using OpenDNS instead, and get a license for Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

Run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Chameleon.

It'll help once the forum gets updated, because there are also hooks that help stop this like a bouncer at the door.