New Computer Tips.

[Richardhead | 2,825]

So 2021 hasn't been overly kind to me so far. I decided changes needed to be made. I think I saw a Warren Buffet quote that said something to the effect of investing in yourself is the best investment. Which is something I have never really done.... Other than video games.

Anyhow, I did just that and bought a new computer, that I hope to do a bunch of things I've wanted to do, but blamed an old garbage laptop for not getting done.

My questions to you fine folks is this... 

What antivirus program should I use, if any?

What programs should I use to keep my personal info safe?

What VPN program should I use?

What other tips and tricks do you all have for me? 

Can someone remind me how to get rid of the spaces in between my sentences again?

Again, any and all tips would be very much appreciated. 

Thanks in advance everyone. 

[Gloves | 11,841]

The spaces are there for legibility, don't go out of your way to remove them. 

• Use
• A list
• Like this
• If you want to do
• Something like that. 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,092]

19 minutes ago, Richardhead said:

Can someone remind me how to get rid of the spaces in between my sentences again?

Shift+Enter
...

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

1 hour ago, Richardhead said:

So 2021 hasn't been overly kind to me so far. I decided changes needed to be made. I think I saw a Warren Buffet quote that said something to the effect of investing in yourself is the best investment. Which is something I have never really done.... Other than video games.

Anyhow, I did just that and bought a new computer, that I hope to do a bunch of things I've wanted to do, but blamed an old garbage laptop for not getting done.

My questions to you fine folks is this... 

What antivirus program should I use, if any?

What programs should I use to keep my personal info safe?

What VPN program should I use?

What other tips and tricks do you all have for me? 

Can someone remind me how to get rid of the spaces in between my sentences again?

Again, any and all tips would be very much appreciated. 

Thanks in advance everyone. 

1. If you're using a UNIX based system like Linux or OS/X, the answer is none. If you're using Windows, and I'm not sure why anyone would, then any one of the free ones would be fine. Try AVG or just use the Windows Defender that came with your computer.
2. Nothing, just be smart about what you click on. Even the best antivirus programs can be circumvented by dumb users that just click YES on everything.
3. None, it's unnecessary as long as you're using SSL and encrypted Wi-Fi.

 

Is it a laptop? Don't leave it plugged in all the time if it is. Plug it in to charge it, then unplug it as soon as it reaches 100%. Then plug it back in when it gets down to 10% and repeat for 4 years. Or you can leave it plugged in all day and buy another battery in 15 months.

Another tip is to not fall for the Microsoft Office nonsense. Using Open Office or G Suite is just as good.

Don't keep anything important on your computer, keep every document, spreadsheet, photo, PDF, everything in cloud storage. I always tell people I could just randomly throw my laptop into a wood chipper at any time and lose zero files. You should never have a folder and think to yourself, "Yeah, one day I'll upload that."

Seriously, don't keep anything important on your computer.

At all.

Nothing.

[Murray | 2,449]

Just bought a new laptop myself with my Biden Bux 

 

[a3quit4s | 4,126]

Windows Defender

Bit locker

Still do not understand the use case for VPN unless streaming services region trickery or massive torrents

If you'll be using it alot at home invest in an external monitor and maybe even a dock

[Richardhead | 2,825]

52 minutes ago, Murray said:

Just bought a new laptop myself with my Biden Bux 

 

Fancier than what I bought. I don’t get those Biden bux, but I may have done okay with some GameStop stocks I bought a long while ago

[Richardhead | 2,825]

26 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

Windows Defender

Bit locker

Still do not understand the use case for VPN unless streaming services region trickery or massive torrents

If you'll be using it alot at home invest in an external monitor and maybe even a dock

Thanks for the advise. I went with a desktop rather than a laptop this time around. I also don’t really see a point to a VPN, as I don’t really do anything that warrants using one. 

[Murray | 2,449]

23 minutes ago, Richardhead said:

Fancier than what I bought. I don’t get those Biden bux, but I may have done okay with some GameStop stocks I bought a long while ago

 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

8 hours ago, Richardhead said:

 

What programs should I use to keep my personal info safe?

 

Could you clarify what you mean by this?

 

[phart010 | 1,708]

7 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

1. If you're using a UNIX based system like Linux or OS/X, the answer is none. If you're using Windows, and I'm not sure why anyone would, then any one of the free ones would be fine. Try AVG or just use the Windows Defender that came with your computer.
2. Nothing, just be smart about what you click on. Even the best antivirus programs can be circumvented by dumb users that just click YES on everything.
3. None, it's unnecessary as long as you're using SSL and encrypted Wi-Fi.

 

Is it a laptop? Don't leave it plugged in all the time if it is. Plug it in to charge it, then unplug it as soon as it reaches 100%. Then plug it back in when it gets down to 10% and repeat for 4 years. Or you can leave it plugged in all day and buy another battery in 15 months.

Another tip is to not fall for the Microsoft Office nonsense. Using Open Office or G Suite is just as good.

Don't keep anything important on your computer, keep every document, spreadsheet, photo, PDF, everything in cloud storage. I always tell people I could just randomly throw my laptop into a wood chipper at any time and lose zero files. You should never have a folder and think to yourself, "Yeah, one day I'll upload that."

Seriously, don't keep anything important on your computer.

At all.

Nothing.

As a power user of Microsoft Office I can’t agree. There are so many things that don’t convert properly from Microsoft formats into the open doc formats. Also functionality in Google docs is just not there, it’s a very lite version of the application. Open office has much more features than Google docs, but the layout is much less intuitive than Microsoft.

The only thing I have against Microsoft is their latest versions of the products (the 365 versions) are always connected online and cloud based - they run slow. If there’s any way you can get the older versions that are not always pinging data back to Microsoft servers, that would be the way to go

[Richardhead | 2,825]

6 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Could you clarify what you mean by this?

 

I use complicated passwords and change them pretty often. But that's the extent of me "protecting my personal info"
Is there anything else I could be doing, like is there software that would help or any other best practices?

[captmorgandrinker | 1,650]

Just now, Richardhead said:

I use complicated passwords and change them pretty often. But that's the extent of me "protecting my personal info"
Is there anything else I could be doing, like is there software that would help or any other best practices?

Don't use the same password for different things.   Also, enable bitlocker as mentioned above.

That way should someone steal your computer they won't be able to access any of your info; at best they'd have to format it to resell it.

[Daniel_Doyce | 477]

11 minutes ago, phart010 said:

As a power user of Microsoft Office I can’t agree. There are so many things that don’t convert properly from Microsoft formats into the open doc formats. Also functionality in Google docs is just not there, it’s a very lite version of the application. Open office has much more features than Google docs, but the layout is much less intuitive than Microsoft.

The only thing I have against Microsoft is their latest versions of the products (the 365 versions) are always connected online and cloud based - they run slow. If there’s any way you can get the older versions that are not always pinging data back to Microsoft servers, that would be the way to go

Totally agree on this, especially missing functionality in Excel clones. However, if MS insists on moving to only subscription cloud crap services, I would switch over to something else.

Google Docs is terrible for power users

[Daniel_Doyce | 477]

7 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

1. If you're using a UNIX based system like Linux or OS/X, the answer is none. If you're using Windows, and I'm not sure why anyone would, then any one of the free ones would be fine. Try AVG or just use the Windows Defender that came with your computer.
2. Nothing, just be smart about what you click on. Even the best antivirus programs can be circumvented by dumb users that just click YES on everything.
3. None, it's unnecessary as long as you're using SSL and encrypted Wi-Fi.

 

Is it a laptop? Don't leave it plugged in all the time if it is. Plug it in to charge it, then unplug it as soon as it reaches 100%. Then plug it back in when it gets down to 10% and repeat for 4 years. Or you can leave it plugged in all day and buy another battery in 15 months.

Another tip is to not fall for the Microsoft Office nonsense. Using Open Office or G Suite is just as good.

Don't keep anything important on your computer, keep every document, spreadsheet, photo, PDF, everything in cloud storage. I always tell people I could just randomly throw my laptop into a wood chipper at any time and lose zero files. You should never have a folder and think to yourself, "Yeah, one day I'll upload that."

Seriously, don't keep anything important on your computer.

At all.

Nothing.

I keep my personal and work computers plugged in 100% of the time. I'd rather pay $20 for a nw battery every 15-18 months that deal with what you're doing every day. Plus, I often have things running over long periods or overnight that I can't babysit if I get busy or have to go somewhere during the day.

Don't put anything in the cloud that you don't want to have suddenly disappear or that you don't mind the rest of the world potentially having access to. I have absolutely nothing in the cloud, and keep everything on my laptop with multiple backups on disconnected external hard drives.

[Daniel_Doyce | 477]

If you get a Windows 10 install, the first thing to do is remove all telemetry / bloatware / crud from it. Just do a search for "lean Windows 10 install" or "remove telemetry" and you should get some good lists of how to get rid of all the spyware it comes installed with

I use AVG for antivirus, MalwareBytes, SpyBot Search and Destroy

Get an external hard drive or two to periodically back up your important stuff, like your Eric the Midget appearance / HSS archive and your extensive pr0n and ROM collections

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

1 hour ago, Richardhead said:

I use complicated passwords and change them pretty often. But that's the extent of me "protecting my personal info"
Is there anything else I could be doing, like is there software that would help or any other best practices?

For sensitive things (bank accounts, brokerages, etc) -- you want to have unique usernames, as well.  And 2-factor authentication when allowed.

(and to mitigate social engineering attacks -- I use names that won't reverse-engineer easily AS WELL AS answering all of the "challenge questions" with arbitrary answers that don't correlate with the questions directly)

 

To go along with that -- personally, I'm in the camp of keeping a discrete notebook with this information in favor of any digital password remembering system, since the risk of bad actors getting my digital stuff is way more likely than someone (1) breaking into my house, (2) happening to find the discrete notebook, and then (3) figuring out what it all means, before I'm able to reset credentials.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

9 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

 

Is it a laptop? Don't leave it plugged in all the time if it is. Plug it in to charge it, then unplug it as soon as it reaches 100%. Then plug it back in when it gets down to 10% and repeat for 4 years. Or you can leave it plugged in all day and buy another battery in 15 months.

 

A properly configured laptop shouldn't be charging the battery to 100% (and maintaining that charge) when plugged in continuously.

You have to adjust the BIOS settings, but you can get the charging algorithm to cycle power while plugged in, to maintain a healthier battery.

 

Serious users with laptops have thunderbolt docks, that you can't reasonably unplug from, since multimonitor setups, etc are all anchored to the dock for day-to-day work, where the laptop is only used "portably" for business trips or additional work from home.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

1 hour ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

Don't put anything in the cloud that you don't want to have suddenly disappear or that you don't mind the rest of the world potentially having access to. I have absolutely nothing in the cloud, and keep everything on my laptop with multiple backups on disconnected external hard drives.

Yeah -- "there is no cloud, only someone else's computer"

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

2 hours ago, phart010 said:

As a power user of Microsoft Office I can’t agree. There are so many things that don’t convert properly from Microsoft formats into the open doc formats. Also functionality in Google docs is just not there, it’s a very lite version of the application. Open office has much more features than Google docs, but the layout is much less intuitive than Microsoft.

The only thing I have against Microsoft is their latest versions of the products (the 365 versions) are always connected online and cloud based - they run slow. If there’s any way you can get the older versions that are not always pinging data back to Microsoft servers, that would be the way to go

Yes, there are things that don't convert well but that's because Microsoft purposely puts proprietary formatting into there for it to fail. If you try and go from Open Office to Office 365, it will convert completely fine. I always have a hard time explaining this to my corporate users that try and tell me it all works fine when they use Word so therefore it must be Open Office that has the problem. No, it isn't, it's Word inserting the poor formatting.

Often times when I find people telling me Open Office doesn't do the same things, it's because they either don't know how to accomplish the same things or they're using Excel for things it shouldn't be used for. I've seen some incredibly complicated multi-sheet calculations and graphing to build reports when that's something that should be exported out to actual reporting software.

1 hour ago, Richardhead said:

I use complicated passwords and change them pretty often. But that's the extent of me "protecting my personal info"
Is there anything else I could be doing, like is there software that would help or any other best practices?

What's your idea of a complicated password? Most people think jimmy1978!@# is super secure but it isn't. The time to crack that using brute force is much lower than a simple sentence would be. For example, you could use iliketoeatstrawberryicecream and that would be much more secure based on the required algorithms to crack it and it's incredibly easy to remember.

What would be even more secure is to use a password manager and allow it to automatically assign you 60 character alphanumeric random passwords which you don't even need to remember.

1 hour ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

I keep my personal and work computers plugged in 100% of the time. I'd rather pay $20 for a nw battery every 15-18 months that deal with what you're doing every day. Plus, I often have things running over long periods or overnight that I can't babysit if I get busy or have to go somewhere during the day.

Don't put anything in the cloud that you don't want to have suddenly disappear or that you don't mind the rest of the world potentially having access to. I have absolutely nothing in the cloud, and keep everything on my laptop with multiple backups on disconnected external hard drives.

I guess I should have been more specific about laptops that don't have replaceable batteries. I have a Asus UX430 and you would need to completely take it apart to replace the battery.

Are your disconnected hard drives in the same house? A single fire would wipe it all out.

19 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

To go along with that -- personally, I'm in the camp of keeping a discrete notebook with this information in favor of any digital password remembering system, since the risk of bad actors getting my digital stuff is way more likely than someone (1) breaking into my house, (2) happening to find the discrete notebook, and then (3) figuring out what it all means, before I'm able to reset credentials.

Password managers like Last Pass use end-to-end encryption which means your passwords are encrypted in storage, then get transferred to you over SSL while still encrypted and then your device uses its private key to decrypt it on delivery. Employees at Last Pass have no way of knowing what your password is and nobody can grab it in transit. This is the main benefit of more expensive password managers over cheaper ones and Google Chrome's password manager.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

6 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

 

Are your disconnected hard drives in the same house? A single fire would wipe it all out.

Password managers like Last Pass use end-to-end encryption which means your passwords are encrypted in storage, then get transferred to you over SSL while still encrypted and then your device uses its private key to decrypt it on delivery. Employees at Last Pass have no way of knowing what your password is and nobody can grab it in transit. This is the main benefit of more expensive password managers over cheaper ones and Google Chrome's password manager.

1) What are the odds of you suffering a total loss in a house fire, versus having online data compromised in some way? 

2) I'll grant that there are living situations where a physical notebook could be problematic -- but in a stable situation, I prefer a discrete notebook in the real world to a digital password manager of any flavor.

[Tulpa | 3,537]

Well, this is turning out to be more entertaining than I thought.

[a3quit4s | 4,126]

Passwords are dead. Everything should be multifactor. Use Google Auth in place of SMS where possible. 

[phart010 | 1,708]

1 minute ago, a3quit4s said:

Passwords are dead. Everything should be multifactor. Use Google Auth in place of SMS where possible. 

I agree multi factor is great. Except when my phone battery dies and I can’t find where my wife put the charger

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

2 hours ago, arch_8ngel said:

1) What are the odds of you suffering a total loss in a house fire, versus having online data compromised in some way? 

2) I'll grant that there are living situations where a physical notebook could be problematic -- but in a stable situation, I prefer a discrete notebook in the real world to a digital password manager of any flavor.

On an encrypted storage medium? Absolutely zero. The FBI were even unable to recover encrypted user data without the encryption key when the owner of Lavabit refused to provide it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/03/lavabit-ladar-levison-fbi-encryption-keys-snowden

If you're using a proper online manager, it is absolutely impossible for your information to get leaked. Those leaks only happen from insecure storage.