Thank god for Ubuntu (linux)!!!!

Well, after 20 months, my laptop has finally crapped out on me. I suspect it's spyware or maybe just window's halflife. Anyway, my windows runs choppy now, whenever I'm doing any tasks with big programs or multiple programs the mouse starts hopping around the screen and everything runs slow. I can't watch any videos, DVD, flash or divx because it skips (seems like memory leaks). Anyway, I can still work with it, but no entertainment whatsover.

I just installed Ubuntu as a secondary operating system and it runs like a dream. Flash Videos, Divx, DVDs and all

Cheers to you computer nerds that created this awesome, free software...

Ó Flannagáin said:

Cheers to you computer nerds that created this awesome, free software

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You're welcome.

And it's GNU/Linux.

And Free Software - Free as in Freedom.

Oh, and one more thing... Install Qbrew. It's in the repos and all ready to go.

Kevin Dean said:

You're welcome.

And it's GNU/Linux.

And Free Software - Free as in Freedom.

Oh, and one more thing... Install Qbrew. It's in the repos and all ready to go.

Click to expand...

Will do, but I have all my recipes stored in beersmith already. You guys should create a recipe importer for QBrew... maybe I'll whip out my old c++ books and work on that myself!

I know there's a few others dealing with suspected spyware on their PCs at the moment on the forum. I just wanted to throw a couple free alternatives to Norton 360 and the like out here.

I've had good luck with Trend Micro's free online AV and spyware checker at: http://housecall.trendmicro.com

Computer Associates has a couple different free online products at :
http://shop.ca.com/STContent/Resources/Resources.aspx

Spybot is a decent spyware blocker, but my favorite items of their's take a little digging into the program. Of particular interest is the hosts file lockdown. You can get Spybot Searc and destroy at: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

AVG has decent free AV and spyware applications:
http://free.grisoft.com/

Symantec has free security check tools at:
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?productid=symhome&langid=ie&venid=sym

And if you're not to adverse to Microsoft you can use their XP tuneup and security items online for free at:
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm

While I know there are websites that require the use of Internet Explorer, I would recommend using Firefox or Opera for those sites that don't require IE, and you should be able to find many online guides on securing your browser, like turning cookies off when browsing unknown domains and such.

If you really want to start learning about internet security there are many resources out there, but I really like the info at SANS.org.

Sorry if this is common knowledge to most, but I've seen a trend on a number of forums showing an increase in the need to preach security to users.

Thanks for bearing with me,
Matt

I did you firefox, only... except when testing web pages I built to see how they looked/worked in all browsers. I used ccleaner and a defrag program. But, I did not use a spyware program, I'll check in to your recommendations.

ma2brew said:

I've had good luck with Trend Micro's free online AV and spyware checker at: http://housecall.trendmicro.com

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^--- Rocks...I love it.

Will do, but I have all my recipes stored in beersmith already. You guys should create a recipe importer for QBrew

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Other way around. Export your recipes from Beersmith as BeerXML and you can import them into Qbrew.

If you install Wine you can still use BeerSmith on Ubuntu.

I was (sort of) joking about the GNU/Linux thing and the "Free as in Freedom" thing... I AM a Free Software EAC, but I would rather put the information out and let people make their own choice - as long as I put it out there first.

I've been using Debian GNU/Linux for almost 5 years now, I remember downloading the very first Ubuntu release candidate. I sometimes sound critical of Ubuntu, but it's only because I was part of the "Linux" landscape before it came around, and like any old fart, I miss the good ol' days.

+1 Ccleaner is the way to go.

Oh, and try the new opensuse release. The livecd rocks.

Using Ubuntu for a few years now, started on mandrake, used fedora and suse. Stuck with ubuntu. Absolutely love it.
And while suse may be a fine distro, I stay far from it due to Novell's **** with M$.