A Name Change

After a search for an appropriate name for this blog, I've settled on Technology for the Timid. It has only been in existence for just over a month, and since day one I've intended the articles to cater to those who are not geeks nor computer science majors, but regular people who only expect their computers to run with a minimum of hassle.

I've also registered a new domain similarly named, and will be moving the blog over to it soon. There are more articles in the works (I always have a long list) and as well I'm soliciting guest contributors. Thanks for reading and send me your story ideas!

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Blogger Sites Can Spread Spyware

An eWeek article mentions how some Blogger sites can deliver spyware to your computer. This newsletter uses the Blogger service to display the news articles, so of course this news is a concern to us.

Blogger gives the users of its service the option of a search toolbar on the top of each page, and a link to another random Blogger site. We have chosen to not display this bar, and we don't display advertising so you won't have to worry about getting spyware from the Technology for the Timid newsletter. It's not a simple matter of the Blogger people just shutting off the random blog link, nor disabling the use of scripting on Blog sites. Doing either of these would drive a lot of Blogger users away and have a detrimental effect on their service.

The best way to deal with this latest threat is to make sure you have a good popup stopper installed on your computer, or use the Firefox browser which has one built-in. And also remember to never click on popup ads if you do get them. An ounce of education can help keep your system clear of threats.

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Your PC Might be Infested With Spyware If . . .

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, your PC might be infested with spyware if your desktop looks like this. If you recognize some of those, maybe it's time to run anti-spyware!

Some nasty spyware is shown in the picture (which I was unfortunately unable to find a copyright for, including at the place it is hosted. If it's yours, I'll remove it or credit you!). If you've never had spyware and want to know how it hides on your system, you'll notice things like the mywebsearch toolbar, Alexa toolbar, Smiley Central, weather applications for your taskbar and others. If they're free, ask yourself how is the author making money with it? Likely the answer is, he's installing spyware on your system and getting paid by selling your personal information or browsing habits.

Running spyware can cause your computer to run slower or even crash. Don't download software that you are unfamiliar with!

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Adding a Live Feed to Firefox

In an earlier article I reviewed Mozilla Firefox. Unlike Internet Explorer, Firefox comes with a very useful feature that automatically updates news stories and adds them into your bookmarks. Instead of going to a web page and reading the latest articles, Firefox lists the news articles right in your bookmarks so you can jump straight to the story you are interested in. This feature takes advantage of something called syndication, or a live feed. Sites such as this one that have frequent updates will make a live feed of their stories available to Firefox and other special news reader software.

This may not seem immediately useful until you realize how much time it saves. If you are interested in reading news stories on different sites, you know how long it can take to browse each of the sites. When you add a live feed to Firefox, it creates a "live" bookmark. The end result is that you have a listing of every new story listed right in your Firefox browser, you don't have to take the time to visit each page. You can skip the stories and web sites that don't interest you and focus on the ones that do.

Tutorial: Adding This Site's Feed to Firefox

Note: Since I moved this blog to its own domain, the pictures in the tutorial show "Paramount Digital Security" rather than "Technology for the Timid". The instructions remain the same and have been edited to reflect this change, but I didn't bother re-editing the pictures. Just use your imagination and assume they are correct!

Step 1: Open up Firefox and go to http://www.techforthetimid.com.

Step 2: Go to the View menu, Toolbars, and turn on Bookmarks toolbar (a check beside it means it is turned on, like this). Turning on the Bookmarks toolbar makes it easier and quicker to see how site feeds work.

Step 3: You should still be on the Paramount web page. In the bottom right of Firefox's status bar, you will see an orange icon (pointed out here). This means that Firefox has automatically detected that this site has a live feed, so you don't have to guess.

Step 4: Click once on the orange icon, and click on the menu that says "Subscribe to Technology for the Timid" It should look like this.

Step 5: From the box that appears, click on either of the arrow buttons and select Bookmarks Toolbar Folder (like this), then click OK.

Step 6: You should now see the Tech for the Timid icon on your Bookmarks toolbar like this. If not, go back to Step 3 and try again. When you click on the button, it will display all of the live story feeds like this.

It's That Easy

Now everytime you open up Firefox, it automatically updates each of the live feed sites on your toolbar for quick and easy news browsing. Try it with another site, such as http://news.bbc.co.uk/, which is the other live feed I have on my toolbar.

Live feeds in Firefox save time and effort in browsing your latest news feeds.

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Wikipes, the Global Cookbook

I love food. I enjoy cooking once in a while. However, most of my experimentation turns out rather poorly and anyone unlucky enough to taste my fare had better make sure there's pizza in the freezer as a backup. Frankly I'm intimidated by recipes with more than a handful of ingredients and prefer to try new things when they look simple for me to do.

Similarly, many people are intimidated by unfamiliar technology, especially when there are a lot of new concepts involved. In this article, I'll show you a technology that might be unfamiliar to you, while also showing you a fantastic way to share recipes with others. We'll do this by exploring an online recipe (and drink) resource that uses a technology called a "wiki"!

Introducing technologies to people using real life examples works well. "Make it real", as the saying goes. Thanks to a new recipe site called Wikipes that started out this January, I can do just that.

What is a Wiki?

A wiki (commonly pronounced "wicky") is a web site that allows anyone to edit content on it. Wiki wiki comes from the Hawaiian term for "quick" or "super fast", which is what a wiki site is designed to do - allow people to edit the content (in this case, recipes) on the site quickly.

Most web sites can only be changed by the owner or webmaster. Some sites have Internet forums that allow users to hold online discussions, inviting them to post topics and discuss issues with one another. However, users cannot edit each other's posted discussions.

It would seem that being able to edit other people's contributions is a bad thing. After all, what would stop someone from changing what I said into something sinister or incorrect? Wiki software has some built-in safeguards to allow the site administrator to roll back changes. Wikis are normally used for factual information, not opinion. One such site is the Wikipedia, a collaborative online encyclopedia.

A Place to Share Recipes

The Wikipes name came from a combination of "wiki" and "recipes" which originated from the creative minds of Erik Sagen and Matt Burris. The section "About Matt Burris" elaborates:

His roommate would always ask him what was for lunch, or dinner, and he would try to find new recipes on the internet. What he found were recipes that called for caviar, or black truffles, or ingredients he has never heard of and would have a price tag of a new T.V. So he thought to himself, how nice it would be to find recipes from people of all walks of life, not just professionals and enthusiasts, but amateurs and those who are just passionate about tasty food and drinks. Therefore, Wikipes.com was born. Matt created this site with the goal of allowing the whole world to participate in a project to share recipes; no matter how fancy, easy, or unique it is.

Finding a Recipe

Like any web site, finding what you want is fairly straight forward. You can either use the search from the main page, or else click on the category menu across the top. Some menu items will give you a further refinement of choices (ie Meals gives you Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner that lead to other pages) while other choices like Drinks will give you the sub-categories on the same page. Using the Search feature was a little slow for me (about 15 seconds).

In general, most wikis have relatively familiar layouts that make it easy to find what you need.

Adding Your Own Recipes

This is the core of what wikis do best. Without requiring you to register your own personal information, wikis are made with a tablespoon of input from the surfing public and a dash of trust. I find it rather amazing that just anyone can drop in and deface wikis yet it rarely happens, and wikis allow rollbacks to a good version in case it does happen. What this means is maximum public input and maximum usefulness with a minimum of hassle.

However, depending on the wiki software that each wiki site uses, it may be a bit involved to learn how to format the pages correctly and consistently. But even if you add a recipe and make a mistake, anyone can fix it!

To get a feel for how adding your own recipe works, most wikis provide a test page for you to play with, and Wikipes is no exception. Take a look at what they call the Wikipes playground where you can edit to your heart's content with a fake recipe. Click on the Edit buttons in each section, and see how they lay out the recipe. In the latter sections when you click Edit you can see a button called "Use Recipe Template" where they add the basic formatting for you. Just click this before you start, and change the text to suit your recipe. It couldn't be easier!

Serving Suggestions

Wikis are powerful web tools that allow open collaboration on their content. Wikipes is a great introduction to the wiki, and hopefully you'll add a few recipes of your own!

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Good Spyware Video

This morning I found a nice little video that describes in simple terms what spyware is. Most people seem to have a hard time grasping what spyware is, maybe because it sounds so cloak-and-dagger.

Many people do not understand the threat of spyware, and this video explains it simply, without using any technical language. It is available here on the Microsoft web site, just click on "Watch the Video".

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Safer Music & File Sharing

Many of our customers use file-sharing programs to obtain music, movies and software. Most of the popular P2P (peer-to-peer) file-sharing clients conceal significant risk from spyware and viruses. Although there are ethical questions over the issue of file sharing, not all file sharing is illegal.

Creating some awareness about safer file sharing is the main purpose of this article, while we leave it up to the reader to debate the pros and cons.

When it comes to music downloads, 40 to 60 million Americans have swapped music files over the Internet. Here in Canada we appear to be a safe haven for downloading music. Despite this, spyware and viruses don't play by the same rules and can infect anyone's system. Furthermore, your privacy is also being encroached upon by law enforcement, organizations and companies opposed to file sharing.

The first step is always to have an up-to-date antivirus program. A close second step is to have at least two good antispyware programs installed on your computer, such as Lavasoft AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy, or Microsoft AntiSpyware.

Preventing intrusive probes into your system typically requires a firewall, however a standard firewall doesn't always work when it comes to P2P. In addition to using a good software firewall, a specialized type of firewall called an IP blocker can halt these probes into your computer. Two examples of this are ProtoWall and PeerGuardian. Make sure you run your IP blocker before you run your file sharing software.

There are many P2P programs to choose from, such as variants of BitTorrent, eMule, LimeWire, Morpheus, BearShare, and Kazaa among others. Most P2P programs unfortunately bring with them a large amount of spyware, which remains hidden and unknown to most users. It eventually brings their systems to a crawl, and by that time it is often a high cost in time or money to clean them out.

Before you download and start using one of these P2P programs, make sure you do enough research on them to determine whether or not they contain spyware. You can read their license agreements to see if they mention the collection of information by third party applications, but the language is often buried deep within overly long license agreements or hidden in confusing language.

A good place to start is a site called ZeroPaid. The have a good selection of many popular file sharing applications, as well as descriptions and reviews by members. Some spyware free P2P applications you might want to try are Kazaa Lite Resurrection (also known as K-Lite) or LimeWire.

The best way to prevent spyware or virus problems is to avoid this type of activity altogether. But if it is necessary, at least follow these steps to safer music and file sharing.

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Download: Firefox

Most new Windows computers come with Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) or Microsoft's MSN Explorer (which is the same thing as IE). Unfortunately most of the unpleasant browsing experiences such as adware and spyware as well as a number of other threats to your computer get installed on your system thanks to the security holes left open by IE. There are alternatives to using IE, the most popular is the Firefox browser. Firefox is a leaner, safer browser that has come from the lineage of the Mozilla project and the old Netscape browser.

I didn't jump on the bandwagon right away, mostly because I'd used Mozilla and was underwhelmed by its performance. But many of my own online friends gave it the highest marks, such as these:

"Best browser ever."
"There are other browsers?"
"Once you go firefox, you never go back"
"Yes, firefox is the most secure browser you can have. And [I] would use nothing else. "

Of course it would be a disservice to my own customers if I had not tried the "most secure browser", and the results are impressive. It is a relatively modest download at 4.7MB, which is no more than the average downloaded song. It installed quickly and easily (even with IE running) on my Windows 2000 computer, and even imported all my favourites, cookies and settings. The only thing I did not like about this process was that it alphabetized my favourites, even though I prefer organizing them myself differently.

For those of you who read your news using RSS news readers, Firefox has a wonderful RSS-compatible news reader built into it. When you go to a web page that has RSS or Atom syndication available (like this one!), a little icon appears in the bottom right that lets you add the page's feed to Firefox. This means that Firefox makes it easier to read your favourite news rather than going to each web page individually.

Convenience

The first thing you will notice is that if you open multiple web sites, each page is "tabbed" in the main Firefox window. On the other hand, IE opens an entirely new browser and this can clutter up your Windows task bar. I also use the Google toolbar in IE, and Firefox automatically comes with a Google search installed, which is a handy feature. Downloads are automatically stored on your desktop so they are easy to find, no more flipping through folders to find that elusive download from IE. What was most comforting of all was that all of the features and menu items from IE were available to me in Firefox. There was no getting used to a new way of doing things.

That's not entirely true, there are some new ways of doing things, but in Firefox they are better. The most outstanding thing is managing your favourites. Or rather, managing your bookmarks, as Firefox calls them. I have struggled with IE's tiny favourites organizer (in the Favourites, Organize Favourites... menu). It is slow, clumsy, and since one cannot maximize the window, frustrating. In Firefox you access it the same way (in the Bookmarks, Manage Bookmarks... menu), but instead of a slow, clumsy little window you get a full screen, easy to use, and fast bookmark manager. This alone is worth the price of Firefox, which by the way, is free.

Privacy and Security

No one would use Firefox if it didn't offer any security enhancements over IE. Two important areas that it excels in are protecting your privacy and maintaining your computer's security. Whereas IE'd default configuration allowed running of scripts, malicious or not, it was through this security hole that spyware was able to infect systems. Firefox doesn't support ActiveX technology and thus cannot get infected by spyware that takes advantage of it. It also easily allows the user to turn off Java and JavaScript. If you business relies on ActiveX technology, Firefox may not be for you.

Firefox has a built-in popup blocker, and although it isn't perfect, it will prevent the majority of annoying popups.

Firefox's privacy options page is fairly simple to use and understand. It has a button to clear each of the available settings that it uses, such as history, saved form information, passwords, downloads, cookies and browser cache. Firefox has an Extensions system that are small programs that add functionality to the Firefox program. There are already a few enhancements to Firefox's cookie handling.

Conclusions

Since most spyware and adware targets the Internet Explorer browser, using Firefox instead of IE will help you enjoy a more pleasant browsing experience on the Internet. However, as the popularity of Firefox increases, so will the exploits that will take advantage of it, but rest assured it will be a long time before (if ever) it surpasses IE.

If you suffer from spyware and adware problems, or just want a cleaner browsing experience, Firefox may be for you. Get it on our downloads page.

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Introduction to The Computer Virus

A computer virus is simply a program that spreads by making copies of itself. It also requires a host - just like a cold virus requires a person to infect, viruses need a host computer to spread. When encountering the frustration of a virus infection, most people wonder why anyone would create such a thing.

The online encyclopedia “Wikipedia” says this about the origin of computer viruses:

Virus writers can have various reasons for creating and spreading malware. Viruses have been written as research projects, pranks, vandalism, to attack the products of specific companies, and to distribute political messages. Some people think that the majority of viruses are created with malicious intent. On the other hand, some virus writers consider their creations to be works of art, and see virus writing as a creative hobby. Additionally, many virus writers oppose deliberately destructive payload routines. Some viruses were intended as "good viruses". They spread improvements to the programs they infect, or delete other viruses. These viruses are, however, quite rare, still consume system resources, and may accidentally damage systems they infect.

The one good thing about viruses is that releasing them is a crime in most jurisdictions. In 2002, the creator of the “Melissa” virus was sentenced to 20 months in prison and received a $5,000 fine for his virus which did over $80 million in damage. Typical sentences are less than 2 years in prison. virus writers are also not limited to antisocial teenagers either. There is no typical age for the virus writer, known virus writers come from all age groups as well as both sexes.

The best way to prevent viruses is to practice safe computing, have a good antivirus program and keep up your antivirus subscription. These are files that describe to your antivirus program what the latest threats are, so that it can identify and neutralize them. Often home users will go out and buy an entirely new antivirus program for $75 when their one year subscription runs out, not realizing that they can save money and simply buy another year for less than half that cost. The new subscription uses the same antivirus signatures as the latest storebought copy.

Many people ask what the best antivirus programs are, and there are many good ones. Most people are aware of a few of the popular antivirus packages like Norton/Symantec, McAfee, or AVG. Although these may be good for home users, corporations have more requirements and there are a lot of enterprise products that we sell that we can tailor to your requirements. For companies, there are other considerations that fall into the realm of a corporate defense strategy that can include such things as antispam, web and email content filtering, multiple server environments and clear employee policies. Not everyone runs Microsoft Windows and for the enterprise, securing Unix or Linux servers is just as important.

In future articles we will learn more about what makes an antivirus program "good", and what resources exist that can help you decide which one you should use.

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Beware of Tsunami Scams

We were all shocked and saddened by the tsunami disaster in Asia. Unfortunately, people's generous responses to this disaster are being taken advantage of by Internet scammers. Beware of requests for donations by email that have return addresses from hotmail, gmail, yahoo or other similar bulk email addresses. You should also be wary when you are asked to donate by paying to a bogus-sounding Paypal address.

Another scam involves loved ones of the missing being contacted by bogus "investigators". These investigators ask for money to do searches of areas hit by the tsunami. Contacting your embassy in the country affected as well as the Red Cross is more likely to produce results.

There is also a variation of the old "Nigerian letter scam", where someone emails you, asking for help in retrieving a large sum of money for one of the victims in exchange for a part of the fortune. This too is a scam, and should you find one of these emails in your inbox, delete it.

Tech Times recommends you ignore email donation requests and instead make your donations either in person at your local charity, or else stick to the well-known online charities. For our American friends, use the Google Tsunami Relief page and for a Canadian list, use the Canadian Internation Development Agency's Tsunami Disaster Response page.

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Download: HiJackThis

HiJackThis is a powerful utility that examines key areas of the registry and hard drive and lists their contents. These are areas which are used by both legitimate programmers and hijackers. HiJackThis should be used by advanced users to remove known malware, but it can also be used by new computer users to see what is being loaded when the computer starts.

Another safe way to view a similar list is with a feature built into Windows. Go to Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and click on System Information. This Microsoft program is designed to tell you about your computer. In the folder list, open up Software Environment, then click on Startup Programs. It will show a similar list to HiJackThis (but not as complete), and it has a side benefit of not allowing you to delete any entries.

Sometimes malware, spyware or viruses can install themselves in these areas of the registry. HiJackThis will list them and allow you to remove the entries you want. If you are just curious, you can safely run this just to take a look without changing anything on your system. But if you do remove anything, do so at your own risk. Again, this is not for the faint of heart, make sure you know what you are removing first! HiJackThis is available on the PDS Downloads page.

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Digital Camera Shopping for the Clueless

If you are like most people, shopping for a digital camera (also known as a "digicam") can be overwhelming. Most stores only carry a limited number of cameras, and sometimes the pressure to buy now! results in a buying decision that you might regret later.

One of the best ways to make a good decision is to know what the market has to offer, and how well these digital cameras perform in the real world. Marketing literature isn't as valuable to you as someone telling you how good or bad their latest digital camera is. In this article we will take a look at some good resources for finding and learning about digital cameras.

If you are new to digital cameras, and want to know all about megapixels, CCDs, and other new buyer questions, take a look at Dave's Definitive Guide to Buying a Digicam. Dave's site also has a list of top picked cameras as judged by their readers.

Once you have a general idea of what you're looking for in a camera, you might want to compare it to other similar units from different brands. The ACME Digital Camera Database allows you to do a search on the features that interest you, and it will list all of the digicams that match.

When you've narrowed your choices down to a few, you might want to know how well they really work. The best way to do this is to see what others say at epinions.com or Consumer Guide.

Once you've picked out the model of your new digicam, where do you buy it? Can you trust online vendors? Yes, if they are reputable. If you are buying on eBay make sure the seller has a good rating. But if the online deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. Your local camera or electronics store typically has a good selection of digital cameras.

Finally, you will need to consider all of the extra expenses like batteries, a camera bag, a higher capacity memory card, or even an extended warranty. These can add a significant cost to your total outlay, so make sure you include the extras in your comparison.

Take your time, compare reviews, features and prices, and take home a great camera!

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Peter's Top 10 Wireless Network Tips

Wireless home and small business networks (called Wi-Fi for short) are extremely popular these days. If you have a Wi-Fi setup and are disappointed at its performance, you are not alone. There are many things that you can do to make your network faster and more reliable.

For this article, we are going to focus on one of the most popular setups using the Linksys brand for the router and a PC with a wireless network card. There are a few different types of wireless adapters, some install inside your machine and have a small antenna sticking out the back. A second type is a compact USB adapter that simply plugs into a USB port on your computer, and the third type is another kind of USB network adapter that looks like a small standalone base station with an antenna, but connects to your computer through USB.

There's a lot of information on the Internet about getting your wireless network set up. However, there's not much about tweaking it to maximize the performance. One of the most popular Wi-Fi routers (the thing that plugs into your high speed modem) is the Linksys WRT54G.

This is the "base station" if you will; the unit that transmits and receives the wireless signals to all of your wireless devices, and shares the Internet connection among them. The router and the network adapter in your computer make up your wireless network. So how can we improve it?

Tip #1: Wiggle your antennas. Notice the two antennas, and that they can be swiveled around. Also your router itself can be turned to the left or right. This gives you a good degree of freedom in positioning the antennas for best reception. Try pointing your antennas at a 90 degree angle to where the remote computer is. Also try pointing the antennas directly at the remote computer.

Tip #2: With antennas, size does matter. Simple, but it can help! Linksys has ones available for their routers here but if you have a different brand, check their web site for availability. Some other brands have antennas that unscrew and use the same connection as the Linksys ones.

Tip #3: Get a range expander. Make sure you get a compatible range expander, as brands don't always work well together.

Tip #4: Buy a second router. There are two big disadvantages to this method however. The first is if you have a laptop and you wander around your house surfing the web, as soon as you leave the first router's range it will disconnect you from the Internet as each of the routers are different networks. The second disadvantage is that you'll need two high speed Internet connections coming into your house or business, which can get rather expensive. This is not a recommended solution.

Tip #5: Double the power of your router. Also known as a router hack.

QUICK DEFINITION ABOUT "HACK" - When I use "hack" in this article, I'm using it to mean "an inelegant and usually temporary solution to a problem", not the usual sinister meaning of illegally breaking into a computer system! This is the good hack!

This is geared towards those of you who built a crystal radio as a kid and actually enjoyed it. Those who are not technically inclined might want to stay away, but we include it only as a matter of interest. We haven't tried this ourselves, so we can't endorse it as it will also void any warranty you have. A company called Sveasoft provides a subscription to software that upgrades your router and gives you the ability to more than double the power of the transmitter to 251W! Their upgrade has many other features that we won't go into here.

Tip #6: Build your own dish antenna. If it works for your satellite receiver, it should work for your wireless network. Make your own parabolic mesh antenna! This is not a new idea, in fact there are many people doing this, including hobbyists and home users. We invested in a $2 metal kitchen strainer and will try our hand at this unique and simple hack. We'll update our results on the blog web site as we complete it.

Tip #7: Reduce interference. Sometimes called EMI, or electromagnetic interference, this can be caused by other devices in your home or office that use the same 2.4GHz band that Wi-Fi does. The main culprit is usually 2.4GHz telephones. You can solve this by moving your phone's base station away from the router, or changing the channel of your telephone. You can also switch to a 5GHz phone. Other sources of interference are televisions, microwaves and radios. Last but not least, it helps to move your router a meter away from your computer. Many people sit their routers on top of their computer, but this can cause interference, try moving it away from other devices so it has clear area around it.

Tip #8: Higher is better. According to Cisco Systems, the parent company of Linksys, it is better to have your router as high off the ground as possible. If you are using it in a multi-floor location, put it on the top floor and as high in the room as possible, leaving at least 2 feet clear around the antenna.

Tip #9: Avoid physical obstacles. Keep your router away from large metal objects (filing cabinets, etc) and large bodies of water (fish tanks, bathrooms). Things such as concrete walls, furniture, and distance all affect your signal. Try different locations to improve the Wi-Fi signal.

Tip #10: Get a faster router. The current popular standards-based routers available today are Wireless A, B and G. These run at 54Mbps, 11Mbps and 54Mbps respectively. There are some newer devices that are referred to as Super-G, 100 or 108. These are not yet standards and they typically do not work with equipment from other companies. The next true standard is 802.11n at 100Mbps but this won't be out until 2007. Your best bet for compatibility is to stick with G for the foreseeable future.

If you are still having problems with your wireless network, contact us to help with your wireless needs.

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Download: Mike's Ad Blocker

When you visit web sites, do all of the flashy ads on the page distract you? If the answer is yes, you might be interested in a free utility that blocks the ads from appearing. Instead of a frenzy of ads, you only see white space, sometimes with an "Action Cancelled" message in it. It has a side benefit of also preventing some spyware from reaching your computer.

The great thing about this utility is that it isn't an application program, it's just a data file that contains the addresses of advertisers. It operates on a very simple principle (called a HOSTS file). Mike Skallas, the one who provides this, has a very large list of known advertisers in his HOSTS file. All you need to do is download Mike's ad blocking HOSTS file and you will no longer see ads from those companies. There is no program to run to make it work, Windows automatically looks for and uses this file.

A permanent link to Mike's site is also available on the Paramount Digital Security downloads page. On Mike's site, there are two ways to get the HOSTS file. The easiest is to download the Installer program to your computer, then run it. The second way is to download the HOSTS file directly to a windows directory. Instructions are included on Mike's web page.

If you don't like the results and want the ads back, you can just restore your old HOSTS file. The installer even creates an entry in your Add/Remove programs list. One final note, most antispyware programs will see that your HOSTS file has changed and will report this as a possible hijacking, which you can ignore in this case. I use Mike's Ad Blocking Hosts file and highly recommend it.

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Welcome

Welcome to the online blog of Paramount Digital Security, bringing you user-friendly news, tips, reviews and do-it-yourself information for home and business users alike. I'll be writing original articles about various technology topics on a regular basis, so feel free to drop by again.

For contact information, click here

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