Computer issues, Viruses, trojans, crashes, install problems etc Options

[mALX]

Turns out I was wrong. My beloved 3.1 computer is beyond salvation. It's apparently too broken and the content on the harddrive cannot be salvaged.

At least I gave it an honest chance.

Oh Mirocu, I'm so sorry!

[mirocu]

I know it's silly, but that was my favourite computer having had it for nearly 25 years. I have so many memories coming back just from thinking about it. Everything that happened in my life around that grey box. It always felt solid as a rock, like it could never break down. It was that reliable.


I'm glad I took precautions a few years back and transferred everything to my Milennium. Not the same obviously, but it's there. Even some of the high scores which is kinda natty.

[SubRosa]

Commander Data and I both feel your pain...

[mirocu]

Thank you SubRosa, you actually managed to give me a chuckle

[Decrepit]

I know it's silly, but that was my favourite computer having had it for nearly 25 years. I have so many memories coming back just from thinking about it. Everything that happened in my life around that grey box. It always felt solid as a rock, like it could never break down. It was that reliable.


I'm glad I took precautions a few years back and transferred everything to my Milennium. Not the same obviously, but it's there. Even some of the high scores which is kinda natty.

Wow! Your comment makes me realize I've been a PC gamer since 1989. 30 years!!!!!!! Never saved any of my earliest machines much beyond the point no new top-tear game titles ran on them. Nowadays I have three PCs, all of which served as primary PCs in their day. Even the oldest can run Windows10. I probably haven't turned that system on since "upgrading" to Win10 when MS stopped supporting Vista. If I ever do turn it on, it'll prolly take a solid day to DL and install all Win10 updates released since then. (Which reminds me, my primary PC for some reason still hasn't made the jump from Win10 1803 to 1809. That's fine by me.)

Funny, up until maybe two/three (?) years ago I still had my original Win3.1 installation disks, manuals and packaging. Same for Win95/98/XP/Millennium. Ran out of shelf storage space, figured I'd never need 'em again, so junked 'em all to make room for other things.

Speaking of Win10, time is running out for Win7. I'm gonna need to "upgrade" my secondary machine before next January. No way around it. My brother uses it during his weekly visits. It needs to remain bulletproof, internet wise. I thought to perform the "upgrade" several weeks ago. My bro announced he would NOT visit one weekend, giving me a two-weeks window to ensure all was well. But, when the time can I felt too crappy to mess with it.

[Dark Reaper]

Turns out I was wrong. My beloved 3.1 computer is beyond salvation. It's apparently too broken and the content on the harddrive cannot be salvaged.

At least I gave it an honest chance.

Gives Senpai Crow a hug.

[Decrepit]

Gah! Was watching vids at YouTube until a few mins ago. At that time an ad appeared, which shouldn't happen with an AdBlocker enabled. I then received a message, something to the effect that Firefox did not recognize one of my add-ons, which had been automatically disabled. Clicked on Firefox's Add-ons page to see what was up. That's when I notice that ALL my add-ons are now not recognized and thus disabled. A quick web search found this to be a new (as of today) issue, already being addressed. In the meantime I've temporarily switched to Brave, a browser I auditioned some time ago but ultimately decided isn't as good as Firefox. Be that as it may, it's certainly more than good enough to fill in for Firefox until this SNAFU is corrected.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: May 4 2019, 04:12 PM

[mirocu]

Same problem as you, Decrepit. Lemme know when this issue has been corrected, I can't live without Old Youtube and Adblock!

[mALX]

My Browser is Google Chrome; and I've been (for the last several weeks) suddenly getting a large white box "prompt" to log in (that completely covers the vid so you can't see what you are trying to watch).

That large prompt does go away if you "go back" and then reopen the page; and it did still disappear today when I did that = but today (for the first time) after I came back to the page I got a smaller white box "prompt" (that also covered the vid so it couldn't be seen) = but THIS NEW PROMPT offered me ONE FREE MONTH TRIAL OF NO ADS! After that we will have to pay to use YouTube or put up with ads.

GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!


And by the way = I have also noticed several times recently that they have cut into vids NUMEROUS times for ad inserts so that you can't watch a 4-10 minute vid without seeing numerous ads that break up your vid into segments! You can see how many adds you will have to watch by pausing the vid and counting the little yellow marks on the recording line.

Example: I have a vid paused right now for Fallout 4 Settlements by Oxhorn that is 1:15.07 long; and is showing 8 ad segments already cut into that vid. That is not including the several ads I had to watch first just to see the vid to begin with.

Not just that; but at the beginning of vids when you USED to get just 1-2 ads = you are now getting 6-8 in a row before you can even see the beginning of the vid you want to watch!

I already went on a search for a replacement to YouTube several weeks ago when they forced their adds overlay whenever I paused vids trying to see a detail on the vid itself (so I couldn't see anything on the paused vid, only their ads).

The best competitor I could find didn't have a search engine; so there was no way to Google what you were looking for and have ANY of their vids come up without actually typing their name in the search field just to see any of their vids at all = and then just got a dump of everything they had, no way to sort to what you were looking for.

I wonder how much of this has to do with them OR is it because (I think I learned this from Decrepit) Google owns YouTube. So maybe instead of searching for a replacement of YouTube, I should be looking for a replacement for Google instead, not just YouTube.

(not to mention that at this point that competitor had almost no vid submissions in any field, so were useless as competitors against YouTube)

What I had noticed several months back was that when I search for anything via either Google or YouTube = instead of bringing up what I was actually looking for, instead they are bringing up stuff I asked for months ago, as if that crap is pertinent to today's search!

Like: "Here is what you are looking for right now," (shows 2 submissions) = but HERE is what you searched for last month! (shows 6 submissions).

Remember when you could Google something and get 32 pages of JUST what you were actually looking for? And if some of the submissions were off, at least they had that keyword in them and so were relevant!

** Rant not over





Its the end of the era of user-friendliness...








This post has been edited by mALX: May 4 2019, 04:58 PM

[treydog]

And that- plus the sneaky information collecting- is why I switched from teh Google to DuckDuckGo as my search engine of choice.

[Decrepit]

My Browser is Google Chrome; and I've been (for the last several weeks) suddenly getting a large white box "prompt" to log in (that completely covers the vid so you can't see what you are trying to watch).

That large prompt does go away if you "go back" and then reopen the page; and it did still disappear today when I did that = but today (for the first time) after I came back to the page I got a smaller white box "prompt" (that also covered the vid so it couldn't be seen) = but THIS NEW PROMPT offered me ONE FREE MONTH TRIAL OF NO ADS! After that we will have to pay to use YouTube or put up with ads.

GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!


And by the way = I have also noticed several times recently that they have cut into vids NUMEROUS times for ad inserts so that you can't watch a 4-10 minute vid without seeing numerous ads that break up your vid into segments! You can see how many adds you will have to watch by pausing the vid and counting the little yellow marks on the recording line.

Example: I have a vid paused right now for Fallout 4 Settlements by Oxhorn that is 1:15.07 long; and is showing 8 ad segments already cut into that vid. That is not including the several ads I had to watch first just to see the vid to begin with.

Not just that; but at the beginning of vids when you USED to get just 1-2 ads = you are now getting 6-8 in a row before you can even see the beginning of the vid you want to watch!

I already went on a search for a replacement to YouTube several weeks ago when they forced their adds overlay whenever I paused vids trying to see a detail on the vid itself (so I couldn't see anything on the paused vid, only their ads).

The best competitor I could find didn't have a search engine; so there was no way to Google what you were looking for and have ANY of their vids come up without actually typing their name in the search field just to see any of their vids at all = and then just got a dump of everything they had, no way to sort to what you were looking for.

I wonder how much of this has to do with them OR is it because (I think I learned this from Decrepit) Google owns YouTube. So maybe instead of searching for a replacement of YouTube, I should be looking for a replacement for Google instead, not just YouTube.

(not to mention that at this point that competitor had almost no vid submissions in any field, so were useless as competitors against YouTube)

What I had noticed several months back was that when I search for anything via either Google or YouTube = instead of bringing up what I was actually looking for, instead they are bringing up stuff I asked for months ago, as if that crap is pertinent to today's search!

Like: "Here is what you are looking for right now," (shows 2 submissions) = but HERE is what you searched for last month! (shows 6 submissions).

Remember when you could Google something and get 32 pages of JUST what you were actually looking for? And if some of the submissions were off, at least they had that keyword in them and so were relevant!

** Rant not over





Its the end of the era of user-friendliness...

Seems to me you'd be better off with Firefox than Chrome, at least once this current Firefox SNAFU is resolved. So far as I know, Firefox has no plans to banish/weaken ad blockers and the like, which Google/Chrome seems hell-bent to do. Or you might try Brave, the browser I now temporarily use. Unlike Firefox, Brave comes with ad blocking enabled by default. (At least it did when I installed it. With Firefox you need to enable blocking via Add-on, a simple process.) An added plus, during install Brave flawlessly transferred all my Firefox Bookmarks, even keeping me signed in to every site Firefox is signed in to. Some folk complain Brave now bears too much visual resemblance to Chrome, which likely isn't a minus for you. I prefer Firefox of the two (except for this hopefully short-lived SNAFU). In any case, you can install Bravo and/or Firefox without harm to Chrome, then uninstall if you don't like either of them.

Also, switch to a less obtrusive search engine. I prefer DuckDuckGo for everyday searches. In some ways its little if any better than Google Search, but at least it doesn't sell your info to marketing and other agencies. As to a YouTube replacement, I don't believe a truly viable one exists. Nor do I expect one to materialize anytime soon, with things as they are now.

Here's a link to Brave's "features" page, which gives a good overview of its aims. Again, I'm not giving it wholehearted endorsement, preferring Firefox. But, Brave isn't bad at all, and with Firefox currently 'acting up,' now's a good time to give Brave a look-see.

[SubRosa]

Gah! Was watching vids at YouTube until a few mins ago. At that time an ad appeared, which shouldn't happen with an AdBlocker enabled. I then received a message, something to the effect that Firefox did not recognize one of my add-ons, which had been automatically disabled. Clicked on Firefox's Add-ons page to see what was up. That's when I notice that ALL my add-ons are now not recognized and thus disabled. A quick web search found this to be a new (as of today) issue, already being addressed. In the meantime I've temporarily switched to Brave, a browser I auditioned some time ago but ultimately decided isn't as good as Firefox. Be that as it may, it's certainly more than good enough to fill in for Firefox until this SNAFU is corrected.

There is a work around for Firefox disabling your addons.

Go to about:debugging in your address bar

Click on Load Temporary Addons

From here you can manually add back each addon by their .xpi file. If you have them backed up get them from your backup folder. If not you can get them straight from your Firefox install folder. C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<some random shit>.default\extensions

The caveat is that if you exit Firefox it all gets wiped out, and you have to do it all over again the next time you open it.


Edit: Looks like they fixed it now.

[mirocu]

Edit: Looks like they fixed it now.

It's not fixed for me. I still get error messages when trying to download addons

[Decrepit]

Edit: Looks like they fixed it now.

It's not fixed for me. I still get error messages when trying to download addons

I'm with you sir bird. FF is still in SNAFU mode for me. Thankfully, Brave Browser makes a satisfactory substitute while this mess is being fixed.

Since my brother is likely visiting this afternoon, I fired up my secondary computer first thing this morning. There, Firefox is working with Add-ons as normal. However, this was the first time it has been fired up since long before the issue began. I went ahead and installed Brave there just in case. My bro isn't very computer savvy so for sure I don't want him using vanilla Firefox should the SNAFU kick in while he's on the internet.

Haven't yet (since waking this morning) searched for any status updates concerning the issue and its fix

[mirocu]

Sorry to hear you're still having issues too, Decrepit. Would you recommend Brave to a bird stuck in the past and who wants something kinda similar to FF? Adblock and old Youtube theme are requirements.

[Decrepit]

Sorry to hear you're still having issues too, Decrepit. Would you recommend Brave to a bird stuck in the past and who wants something kinda similar to FF? Adblock and old Youtube theme are requirements.

Alas, so far as I know Brave does not have an "Old YouTube" equivalent. As mentioned, it does have Adblock built in without need of an add-on. I think it makes a good fill-in for FF while this mess continues, but FF still reigns supreme IMO (discounting this current SNAFU). Oh...Brave DOES support Chrome Add-ons, as I understand it. Maybe there's an Old YouTube equivalent amongst them??????

Here's an official blurb about the FF SNAFU.

[mirocu]

Enabled Studies, fix show up in the list but add-ons still inactive and any attempt to download result in "connection problem".


I want to post certain words now.....

[Decrepit]

Enabled Studies, fix show up in the list but add-ons still inactive and any attempt to download result in "connection problem".


I want to post certain words now.....

<nods> I had Studies enabled all along. Like you, the fix is listed as having been completed. Yet nothing changed. Not yet in any case.

BTW, just visited Brave add-ons "store." Saw two add-ons there that might be what you're looking for YouTube wise. Didn't bother to investigate either as I'm okay with the current YouTube setup. Am a bit confused as the button for those add-ons is labeled "Add to Chrome" rather than "Add to Brave." Might be SOP for Brave, but I've not yet needed an add-on for it so don't know.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: May 5 2019, 11:37 AM

[SubRosa]

That's interesting. Firefox has working fine for me since last night. I also did the manual method of re-adding my addons that I linked to from Reddit. Maybe that has something to do with it.

[mALX]

Sorry to hear you're still having issues too, Decrepit. Would you recommend Brave to a bird stuck in the past and who wants something kinda similar to FF? Adblock and old Youtube theme are requirements.

Have you tried clearing your internet cache of all cookies; removing all temporary files from your hard drive; then restarting your PC? Sometimes that helps to get rid of a lingering issue.

Also, if you have a "Smart" Firewall = you can reset it and sometimes that wipes out a lot of secret permissions that your search engine has established for itself without your knowledge. I've had to do that regularly because Google keeps giving itself permissions I'm not comfortable with; and it sets everything back to "day one" with Google having no permissions at all for about two weeks.

I already have Firefox installed, and since you gave me that link (Thank you very much for that! That is a great help!) I plan to try out Brave = just waiting to see if all this YouTube trouble goes away by changing browsers or if we are seeing the wave of our unhappy futures where YouTube is concerned. I have the terrible feeling that it is following in Photobucket's footsteps here.

But I most def want to try DuckDuckGo; especially if it acts the way Google USED to act, (IE = shows what you ask to see, not what you asked to see last week or month to "remind" you). I'll ask my son to get it installed on my PC.

Thank you Treydoggie and Decrepit for your help !!!

Oh, and I wanted to ask = didn't Microsoft used to have their own search engine packaged with their PC's? Is that still a viable option? (MSN or something) = I have used it when searching for Microsoft related software; (Malware removal tools that Microsoft used to put out monthly) but never thought of trying it for other things.