NotHereToPlayGames

The site is always accessible, no matter what browser. Geoblocks aside, of course. BUT... Cloudflare kicks in ONLY when you log in to pay your utility bill. On-topic to this thread, Serpent 52 has NEVER been able to log in on this site.

Well, I wasn't looking for confirmation. You asked for an example where Cloudflare will LOOP on Site A despite Cloudflare working just fine on Sites B through Z. It does not surprise me that a web site where I pay my sewer bill in Midwest USA is "banned" OUTSIDE of the USA.

https://invoicecloud.net/ edit: I've actually *never* been able to login to the Biller Login using Serpent 52. But it's also been a good year and a half since I last even tried. But you don't get the Cloudflare captcha until the login process in the upper right corner. Next time it happens (and I'm convinced that there *WILL* be a "next time"), I can try logging in with FAKE login credentials and see if that triggers the Cloudflare loop. Last November, Cloudflare would infinite loop when I was on a browser version *only* TWO versions "old" "prior". Infinite loop in Official Chrome v136 and in Official Chromium v136. Only way to get past Cloudflare was to upgrade to v138 (but updated to v140 for other reasons). And just last month, this site would also Cloudflare infinite loop when I was on a browser *only* THREE versions "old" "prior". Infinite loop in Official Chrome v140 and in Official Chromium v140. Only way to get past Cloudflare was to upgrade to v143.

The specific website(s) should probably be cited. Not "all" Cloudflare captchas are "the same". Even in MODERN Chrome/Chromium (not most-recent, but only 2 or 3 versions behind !!!) you can encounter Cloudflare ENDLESS LOOPS on website A but websites B thru Z all work perfectly fine. The Cloudflare on website A loops endlessly, UNSOLVABLE. But the Cloudflare on websites B thru Z all work perfectly fine.

Please stop being "combative". It feels like you are trying to "start a fight". Why? The "impatience" I can live with. If this is "combative" in nature, the moderators can keep track of how often that is the case.

For starters, my DuckDuckGo doesn't find any MSFN results until you scroll all the way to Page 5. But it gives me the real M icon. No stupid cat icon.

Oh yeah, correct regarding Supermium. I tried on Supermium in XP and could not replicate the redirect, as I posted previously. I AM NOT IGNORING THE STUPID CAT! I AM ATTEMPTING TO REPLICATE *BEFORE* I ANSWER. I have NOT been able to replicate the stupid cat icon.

The only specific combination we have been told that this redirect is happening is Iron 109 on Win7. Which I tried and I could not replicate. To the best of my knowledge, it *ONLY* affects users of DISCORD. But that has not been confirmed.

It's only affecting a very small number of users. I have *NOT* been able to replicate! But not just me, this entire thread hasn't yet revealed additional affected users. None of those that have been affected have been able to provide enough details for those of us not affected to become affected. So it is kind of "their problem", not "our problem". Maybe they tracked it down to a corrupt browser profile but have not revealed that fix to the rest of us? We can all only speculate since none of the affected has reported 1) that it's fixed, or 2) additional details so that we can replicate.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to "minimize" the situation. BitLocker is to protect "data", NOTHING MORE. So it really does boil down to this bottom line - would a thief run with that laptop for the monetary value of reselling the laptop, or for the monetary value of the DATA that is stored on that laptop? For what it is worth, my brother owns a small computer repair shop and even he MOCKS ME for running a hard drive through a 3-pass DoD "wipe" before donating to Goodwill. He asks basically the same question, "What data is on there that is really worth the steps to recover something after a 'format'?" That 3-pass "wipe" took SIX HOURS to run on my last Goodwill donation. I run it anyway! Because it's not that difficult to "recover" content from a "formatted" hard drive.

That seems rather predictable, in my opinion. Not to overly state my view, as it is "your" responibility for that loved-one's laptop, but BitLocker should *never* be used on *any* computer that doesn't have "data" 'worth hundreds, if not millions' to a thief that would steal it and request ransom be paid in Bitcoin.

https://www.isunshare.com/faqs/bitlocker/what-triggers-bitlocker-recovery-to-require-a-key-entry.html https://www.aeanet.org/why-is-my-computer-asking-for-bitlocker-recovery-key/ https://windowsforum.com/threads/bitlocker-recovery-key-demands-practical-troubleshooting-guide-for-quick-recovery.393333/ https://www.elevenforum.com/t/info-only-what-can-trigger-bitlocker-recovery.13695/ Technically, all it takes is a monthly WINDOWS UPDATE to trigger a request for the BitLocker key. ie, you could be dealing with this each and every Update Tuesday. If the elderly runs the laptop's battery down to where the laptop shuts itself off, that will trigger BitLocker.

"Above my paygrade", as the saying goes. I can only assume it is so that IT can use the same exact "image" for laptops as they do for laboratory desktops. But strictly just a guess (as 60%+ of the "decisions" made by IT are "dumb" in my opinion).

Ultimately, your BitLocker's goal is NOT to protect the "value" of the laptop. If it gets stolen, it gets wiped and reinstalled, BitLocker does not prevent that! A stolen laptop does not get "returned" just because it has BitLocker (or even thumbprint) enabled. Your BitLocker's "goal" is to protect what is "on" that laptop. And if a thief is wanting grandma's/grandpa's Facebook, they don't even need the laptop for that.

If you're asking about the elderly-use laptop, you tell us, does it have a thumbprint reader? More importantly, just how "secure" does that Teams and Facebook need to be? We have browser threads where people go through "great lengths" to appease their own paranoia. Is a thumbprint reader for grandma's/grandpa's Teams and Facebook "above or below" that level of paranoia? Is the laptop getting carried from airport to airport? Or just from a living room couch to the kitchen table?

Good point. Our company USED TO force us all to use BitLocker. Lasted for over one year but less than two years. We would have to enter a THIRTY TWO DIGIT access code after every reboot, THEN enter our password. And reboots are frequent and often (due to forced updates from IT, not only Windows Updates, but other company software). But the way they had it set up, we would have to enter those THIRTY TWO DIGITS after even just closing the lid of our laptop. Many of us (myself included) found that we could ENABLE HIBERNATION, set to hibernate if lid closed, and we'd only have to enter those 32 digits after forced reboots. It took IT close to TWO YEARS before GLOBAL HQ basically told them, "You cannot spend so much of your time re-imaging hard drives when employees forget their 32 digit BitLocker access code, you cannot keep hiring new people just to keep up with these re-imaging tasks, our employees lose TWO DAYS of real work every time you cannot get them back online because of forgotten 32 digit BitLocker access codes." BitLocker was removed from all company laptops and we all had to use a "rolling password" system instead. Our password literally changes every 60 seconds and we need to use a mobile phone app to see what our password is at time of login. Sure, that's a hassle also. But it's only SIX digits instead of 32. But it literally changes every 60 seconds.

Comparison #4: Reverted to default File Explorer (ie, uninstalled Directory Opus). Lowest idle RAM, lowest idle process/threads/handles. Dropped to 0.6 RAM, 39 processes, 464 threads, 16206 handles. Granted, the difference between 0.8, 0.7, and 0.6 RAM is negligible. BUT... There is SIGNIFICANT responsiveness IMPROVEMENT. The best way to "visually see" the improvement is via System Informer. Open any multi-process Chromium-based browser, strictly as an example. When you close that browser and *watch* System Informer, all of those processes close much FASTER now, there used to be a significant and observable lag. Truth be told, I did not run separate tests to ISOLATE whether this responsiveness GAIN is due to uninstalling Directory Opus or to disabling StartMenuExperienceHost. (I'm inclined to tie it to StartMenuExperienceHost, but I did not verify through experimentation [because of other justifications to replace a program from 2010].)

Next, disable StartMenuExperienceHost.exe (and the RuntimeBroker.exe that it requires to run alongside itself). There are plenty of FREE, non-stolen, third-party tools for this. I like Open-Shell Menu (used to be called Classic Shell). I prefer to not install the Classic Explorer, Classic IE, and Open-Shell Update options, strictly installing only the Open-Shell Menu. From here: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu But this is purely a preference, any ol' third-party tool should suffice. This doesn't "by itself" get rid of StartMenuExperienceHost and its RuntimeBroker piggyback. Save as a .bat file and run as Admin: taskkill /f /im explorer.exe taskkill /f /im StartMenuExperienceHost.exe move %windir%\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy %windir%\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy.old explorer.exe

Disabling that pesky SearchApp.exe. Despite being "suspended", I don't want it even sitting there eating up RAM. Save as a .bat file and run as Admin: sc.exe config WSearch start= disabled taskkill /f /im SearchApp.exe move %windir%\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy %windir%\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy.old This gets rid of SearchApp.exe and also the RuntimeBroker.exe that it requires to run alongside itself. It's key that you run this as a .bat because Win will try to restart SearchApp.exe when you kill it so you have to get the folder renamed BEFORE it has a chance to restart. We didn't delete anything and can always revert if needed (just remove the .old from the folder name that we renamed so that Win cannot "find" SearchApp.exe).

Comparison #3: Installed Directory Opus. I "like" Directory Opus, been using it since 2010, but it has crashed more and more in recent years (only when the preview pane is also open). Note that indexing is DISABLED on all my computers. SearchApp.exe is "suspended". And my computers "with" Directory Opus do respond slightly slowly than my computers "without" Directory Opus. BUT... I also made more than one variable change to regain that responsiveness. I highlight those changes in the next two posts.

You may never know. It could just be something that the elderly user did, that seems perfectly normal to him/her, but "that" is what triggered all of this.

I always avoid setting up with an MS account. But yeah, I would say that "most people" aren't aware that it IS possible to NOT have an MS account.

"You" might not. BUT... That does not mean that your BROWSER is not set up to search from the address bar. MOST browsers ARE pre-configured, out-of-the-box, as-is, to search from the address bar.

Bitlocker is not required. It will enable itself if you don't disable it manually. I don't remember offhand how to disable, but I know it's disabled on all three of my laptops. It's intended for corporate laptops, it's "over-KILL" on home laptops, especially one for an elderly not spending every other day in an airport cafe.

That does make me wonder - are the users that are seeing this, do they have their address bar acting as a search engine input field? Just stabbing in the dark. If I'm following correctly, this redirect is only caused when msfn.org/board is entered in the address bar. It is not happening if https://msfn.org/board is entered in the address bar. And it is not happening if only msfn.org is entered in the address bar. I actually wish that I could replicate, just to see if I can see something that nobody else is seeing as far as why it is happening, but I have simply not been able to replicate. There's gotta be a common denominator that we are overlooking. Only affects Discord users? Only affects extended kernel users? Only affects a specific DNS Server (which would be lightening-strike odds to be the same on all affected)? Only affects users with a specific extension installed? Specific ad-block list?