PC Community Main Meeting
7:30 - 10 pm May 1, 2015
Calvary Baptist Church 28924 Ruus Road, Hayward California
The meeting was called to order at 7:36 pm by President Chuck Horner. Get your raffle tickets, door prize tickets, and 3” x 5” cards to write questions for discussion/answers at the end of the Meeting. Get at least one $5 raffle ticket for this month’s raffle prize, LITE-ON DVD burner.
Sally asked for suggestions for raffle prizes. Chuck reminded everyone to print their name clearly on their raffle and door prize tickets.
The Linux SIG will meet tomorrow. Rasberry Pi will be part of the discussion.
Presentation: Member Don Odle gave a presentation “Protecting our Computers.”
Why do we protect our computers?
There are many different attacks just waiting for us. Once we connect to the Internet, hackers around the world have access to our computers. At any one moment there will be thousands of hackers searching the Internet to find something to get into. Without some protection, we are exposed to them.
Windows operating systems have been the focus of hackers. Apple/Macintosh has recently begun to get hacked more as it gains more end-user market share. So far, Linux is relatively free of hacking. If you do the basic, browser-related activities—email and searching--Linux might be the way to go.
Don does local and remote support for around 25 computers. He's had the opportunity to learn about a variety of problems. He is challenged most by teaching mature folks how to do the basics. But with the basics, people can—for example--visit with family they haven't seen for years.
Choosing Security and Maintenance Programs:
Basic criteria for all the Security and Maintenance programs?
There are LOTS of security programs out there but how do we choose the best ones for us?
That brings up Don's favorite abbreviation, derived from how IBM wrote it's instruction manuals. They were written by IBM Techies and were only readable by other Techies. Normal users couldn't understand all the Techie junk and the User group came up with the term K.I.S.S. which meant Keep it Simple Stupid.
So for all our users, we could use the same abbreviation with a little different meaning. How about the NEW K.I.S.S. Which means:
Keep It Simple and Secure.
First: The programs must be free.
Second: Look for high ratings. If there are just a few reviews, they are probably all from company employees. If there are hundreds or thousands of reviews, most of them are probably legitimate.
Third: Preferentially choose open source or free programs such as LibreOffice and Microsoft Security essentials because they will not keep prompting you for an upgrade to the Pro version.
Fourth: Carefully watch the usability issues. Does it keep popping up those questions that are so hard to decipher.
Let's look at the current crop of Security and maintenance programs.
Don and his VA support group have chosen Microsoft Security Essentials. It is relatively unobtrusive.
Bud Gallagher suggested BitDefender. Avira is another antivirus program Bud recommends.
When downloading any software, go to the source company rather than using a download service, which may add extra programs to your download. And use the Advanced Install function so that you can uncheck all the ad-on programs that you don't need and that clutter up your drive and your screen.
There must be only 1 Antivirus program and one firewall, but we can have multiple Antispyware programs. Multiple Antispyware programs are suggested to cover all the bases.
Firewall:
Comodo Free is the firewall of choice since it does an excellent job while not bothering the user any more than necessary. Be careful during the install to uncheck the unwanted components.
Antivirus:
Microsoft Security Essentials turns out to be quite capable without bothering the user. Note that a free program from Microsoft is quite unusual but in this case they have a very capable program with very little interference. The amount of junk that it catches is favorably comparable to other antivirus programs.
Antispyware
Malwarebytes
Spywareblaster
Superantispyware
These are free versions of expensive Pro versions, so there are some prompts in the free versions upon occasion to upgrade.
Malwarebytes and Superantispyware have frequent updates
Bud suggests using the Uninstall program from the website of the old antivirus program you're uninstalling--rather than the Uninstall feature in Windows Control Panel, which is less thorough--so that you can then install a new antivirus program.
Utilities
Advanced System Care
Glary Utilities
CCleaner
Advanced System Care has a Removal tool that sits on top of the Start Menu. It pulls out the old bits and pieces and junk.
Advanced System Care and Glary Utilities provide one button press to start off the search and clean up process, while all three provide a bunch of tools for individual cleaning processes. Bud warns that both companies also download trial versions of their other products along with the desired utility download; the user is then locked out when the trial version expires.
Revo is a bit more complicated, but does a very good job. Bud warns that the free version of Revo only works in 32-bit systems. Geek Uninstaller works with both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. It updates itself automatically and does a good job of keeping a computer cleaned up.
Defragger: SmartDefrag optimizes and speeds up disk access.
Free Office Replacement: LibreOffice is a spectacular MS Office replacement that does just about everything that Office does except that this is Free and Open Source--meaning no prompts to update to the pro version.
Bud recommends the SoftMaker office suite as a very inexpensive MS Office replacement.
Paint or Image Programs:
Paint.net—Very powerful and easy use
Irfanview—Simple and fast image manipulation
PDF Readers:
Several PDF viewing tools that are much faster and smaller than Adobe Reader:
Foxit Reader--Caution, contains the Open Candy add pop-up
Sumatra—Fast and simple
Nitro Reader—Very capable but complicated
It is very common for many of the free versions of paid programs to sneak some other things in along with their install. Watch very carefully for small check boxes during the install process because sometimes we have all these “special offers” suddenly coming out of nowhere after an install. It is very rare for OpenSource programs to operate like that.
Again, don't “Click Here.” Read carefully, be sure all the check boxes for “features” you don't need are unchecked. Go to the program source site. FilePuma is currently a simple, relatively problem-free download site. Be sure you're getting the current version at FilePuma, which sometimes is not up to date.
DriverBooster will help you keep your drivers updated. Bud warns us to be careful of similarly-named programs.
Gadwin PrintScreen is a simple way of capturing a screen, or part of a screen.
Don handed out a card with a list of useful Security and Utilities programs, as of 5/1/15. He will forward a PDF version, with live links for downloading, to the Newsletter.
The group discussed updating to Windows 10. People running Windows 7 and 8 are being offered a free upgrade to the full version of Windows 10.
Door prizes
Acronis bag John Cordeniz
Alibaba bag Baba Harrison
CES bag Bayle Emlein
Tobii tee shirt Andrew Tews
Storage Visions bag George Kornblluth
Dentegra tee shirt Mimi Tse
Wireless HQ bag Lola Hunter
Kroll Ontrack tee shirt Michael Wong
Raffle Prize
LITE-ON DVD burner John Cordeniz
Thank you to George Kornbluth and Michael Wong for taking care of refreshments and also to for helping with room logistics and with the signs.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:20 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
