AstroSkipper

It didn't annoy me, it just didn't make sense. I couldn't see that this article was meant satirically, and if I know the Americans, it was meant more seriously. Of course, no problem! But I left the headline, picture and link. Otherwise, no one can understand my contribution.

Hello @maile3241! Long time no hear from each other! Are you OK? I hope so. Anyway, this Legacy Update service is an interesting found! I had a look at its homepage but I couldn't find any information about the supported languages. Do you know if it is for English Windows versions only? Cheers, AstroSkipper

Sorry, but that does not make any sense at all. Moreover, all matter can be explained scientifically. I finished with this subject in my youth, when I did not even know this outstanding man: This is an excerpt of Stephen Hawking's book "Brief Answers to the Big Questions" published by the U.K.'s Sunday Times" from 2018, and I totally agree with his assessment. He had even provided proof for his statement. Source: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/10/15/stephen-hawking-warns-superhumans-ai-posthumous-book/1645963002/ Unfortunately, I will not be able to go into further detail on his statements in terms of god, as this would violate the forum rules. Cheers, AstroSkipper

You're right! That comes out against my will with this constant Americanisation we are all subjected to. I call that subtle influence. Fortunately, the British and German date formats match. Therefore, I would not have to make a decision. The only remaining obstacle would be the effort required to change all the posts concerned.

It's not always peace, joy and happiness. People also have an opinion sometimes! And it should be possible to express it.

Hello @Dave-H! How are you? Hope all is fine with you! To answer your question you're absolutely right! When I started this thread I couldn't really decide which date format to use in general. To keep it now as consistent as possible, I have decided to leave it as I started. Actually, I prefer the format dd-mm-yyyyy as it is usual in Germany. Maybe, I'll revert it but then I'd have to edit all posts to keep consistency.

OT: I stayed at home today too. I still have to take it easy. However, my lady went to a St. Martin's market. It's a pre-Christmas public market.

Here is the link to WiseVector's homepage where you can directly download the latest version (at the moment 3.07) and an older manual: https://www.wisevector.com/en/ . But I don't think it's portable, just like most other AV programmes are. Direct download link: https://update2.wisevector.com/WiseVector_StopX.exe Latest Manual (for the version 2.70): https://www.wisevector.com/wisevector_stopx_user_guide_en.pdf

Update notification! Both versions of my Root Certificate and Revoked Certificate Updater have been updated and are now of 10/25/2022. You can find them in the section 11.2.4. Downloads related to Root Certificate Updates in the first post of this thread. Cheers, AstroSkipper

Why I switched from Avast! to WiseVector StopX There is a very specific reason why I have recently started recommending WiseVector StopX. Until now, I have always used products from Avast! and was also satisfied. On my old computer, which is low on resources and performance, I actually had Avast! Premier installed on my Windows XP partition and had been using it for many years. This year, unfortunately, I had several negative experiences. More and more often, the GUI shut down completely and showed only an empty, white window. Only a repair installation could revive it. In addition, programmes that were reported as false positives were not ignored as offered and excluded from further monitoring. Instead, their access was completely blocked and no longer released. Furthermore, again and again, almost periodically, the Avast! service caused a very high and prolonged CPU load. All these problems prompted me to uninstall the entire Avast program package. And then came the next set of difficulties. The uninstall routine is an imposition. An uninstallation had not really taken place. Whoever programmed this routine should be fired! All files and program folders were not deleted. Thus, completely useless! Even the special Avast uninstaller "Avast! Clear" could not remove everything. So I had to do it manually. The main program folder could not be deleted. Not even with administrator rights. Same with a booted Linux and Mini Windows XP from outside. Both could not delete anything from the locked files and folders. So I was thinking about a proper solution how to delete the locked folders and files. By the way, I am writing this to spare others similar problems. Anyway, the solution is either one tries to delete it under the user account System, whose rights can be obtained with suitable tools (for example RunAsSystem), or one falls back on good old DOS. And this is how I did it. I booted my computer into a real DOS mode and used Volkov Commander to delete all the locked files and folders. DOS doesn't give a damn about accounts and permissions. What needs to be deleted, gets deleted. DOS was my first OS on an IBM compatible PC, and it is an endless love. In any case, this approach was the right way to get rid of all remnants of Avast! Premier. BTW, before uninstalling, I measured the amount of disk space which was consumed by Avast!. And I was stunned. It was about 1.5 GB in many different folders. Unbelievable! After that torture, I installed WiseVector StopX at last. I configured it as well as possible and tested it deeply. WiseVector StopX is very light-weight and consumes approximately 100 MB of disk space in only one program folder. It has less RAM usage, very low CPU load and is easy to handle via its tray icon. On my old computer, it's simply perfect. The performance of my system has been increased, all actions are much faster than before. In short, I am impressed and very happy with my switch to this antivirus program. Cheers, AstroSkipper

Hello @Cixert! A very good tool for defragmenting the registry files and the pagefile is PageDefrag 2.32 from Sysinternals. It solved in several cases starting problems that I had in the past. Another approach is an examination of the integrity of your hard disks with tools from outside. As you wrote in the first post, two different computer are concerned. If so, maybe both are infected by the same malware, or you have installed a program on both computers causing this corruption. In any case, a very deep investigation is necessary if the simple solutions don't work. Cheers, AstroSkipper

Thanks for the flowers! The question mark though is a bit undefined and can be interpreted in different ways. Firstly, I am rather a batch than a JavaScript programmer if at all. Indeed, I created some custom buttons using JavaScript in the past. Reading reference manuals and using already existing code snippets was what I did to get the right code for a specific custom button. In some cases, I did it from scratch by myself, in others I used already existing code and modified it. One of my strengths! But frankly, far away from a good JavaScript programmer. Otherwise, I wouldn't post websites here that no longer work properly due to JavaScript problems, which no one really seems to be interested in, though. Secondly, as I posted in the previous browser thread https://msfn.org/board/topic/182647-my-browser-builds-part-3/?do=findComment&comment=1227973, I already created such a custom button. It toggles a boolean variable from true to false and vice versa in about:config. The status of this variable is shown by the button itself in the form of an image that changes its colour, i.e. its image accordingly. Actually, I created this button for a specific boolean variable, but it can work with any other if you change its code slightly. It works perfectly in New Moon 28 and probably also in other UXP browsers , but in Serpent 55, I really don't know. My custom buttons require the extension Custom Buttons, and I don't know if it is compatible with this browser. Truth be told, I never used Serpent 55 in the past. So I have to test that. Anyway, I will write a post about this custom button in my thread "Extensions and custom buttons for UXP browsers - Corrections, modifications, adjustments, and special recommendations" soon. So, stay tuned! And, this is the mentioned thread: Kind regards, AstroSkipper

As far as I know, you need a license only for the premium features like real-time protection and so on. Without a licence, Malwarebytes should be able to be used as an offline scanner. Try it and you will see! I own a lifetime license, therefore I never used the free version.

Just to understand my very low result. This 22 years old computer is equipped with an Intel Pentium 4 Northwood 2.80 GHz CPU (single core, 32 Bit), 1.5 GB SD-RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 6200 graphic card with 256 MB. All hard disks are connected via IDE. You might understand now why the value is that low. The good and only comforting thing is that I hold the record with the lowest score.

Unfortunately, I observed a new breakage of a web service. The service https://languagetool.org/de doesn't work anymore in New Moon 28 (2022-11-03). This must have been happened recently as some weeks ago it still worked. Same in Mypal 68. In 360ChromePortable 13.5.1030 rebuild 6, no problems at all. It seems to be a JavaScript problem. Here is a screenshot of New Moon with https://languagetool.org/de and the error console opened: Maybe, someone has an idea, or it can be fixed via a polyfill script. Cheers, AstroSkipper

Just to understand my very low result. This 22 years old computer is equipped with an Intel Pentium 4 Northwood 2.80 GHz CPU (single core, 32 Bit), 1.5 GB SD-RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 6200 graphic card with 256 MB. All hard disks are connected via IDE. You might understand now why the value is that low.

My test was performed over a direct internet connection via LAN.

FWIW, here is the result of Speedometer 2.1 with New Moon 28, latest version 2022-11-03 on my 22 years old computer. This test lasted a long time. Therefore, no more tests on my old machine from me, unfortunately. Anyway, I thought people need to have something to laugh about here. And of course, I am interested in what values newer computers achieve compared to mine. Cheers, AstroSkipper

Thank you for the link! I had also read this forum post at the time, but sadly its solution was ineffective for me. At that time, I really tested everything! Malwarebytes' support was also involved. There was nothing I hadn't tried. And, I have read all the articles that have ever been published. Therefore, my hope is not very high that the problem can still be solved. But as my Latin teacher always liked to say: "Neues Stück, neues Glück". Translated: "New piece (of text), new luck".

For the old ones, of course! BTW, Malwarebytes' versions 1 and 2 were abandonded. No more definition updates! But, versions 3 and 4 are supported. The last version compatible with Windows XP is Malwarebytes (Premium) for Windows 3.5.1.2522. It still receives definition updates. but no more program updates, of course. Truth be told, I had problems with installing Malwarebytes (Premium) for Windows 3.5.1.2522. On my Windows XP computer, I finally couldn't properly run this version in the past, but others didn't seem to have such problems. Anyway, all a bit strange! Maybe, there was an incompatibility with Avast! I might try it one last time as I have removed Avast! completely in the meanwhile.

I loved this version and used it as an offline scanner for many years. Unfortunately and sadly, it was abandoned, hasn't got any definition updates for a long time, and logically won't get any more, either.

Did it cast you a 'pretty penny'? I have a few pennies that are pretty and shiny. It's a longer story. Oddly enough, I've had various problems with Avast! this year. Will probably write about it at the weekend. Then I will have time for it. One thing I can say: Although I had some concerns about the country of manufacture, WiseVector StopX is a great AV program and requires only few resources in terms of used disk space, RAM usage and CPU load. It's just perfect for an old box like mine! And the software is constantly being developed and maintained, is Windows XP compatible and free of charge. But, you have to configure it very carefully!

If you're talking about X-Chromium, version 49.0.2605.0 rev16 is the last to run on XP. But of course such a version makes no sense at all, as it is far too old. Besides, in this age category, Advanced Chrome Custom Build 54.20.6530.0 is by far the very best.

Interesting! But, these versions including older ones are not compatible with Windows XP, of course. Therefore, only for Windows 7 and higher.