The Digital Surgery (computer questions/problems here)

[Homer]

Fair enough, but DB hasn't stated he uses a similar blocker, so I can only assume he has something wrong with his anti-virus software, or mine (ESET NOD32) is paranoid.

Nope. The anti-virus (AV) software is working. Site blocking happens before the AV gets involved.

With AV: Click on Kickass calls site managing adverts which calls site with malware. AV intercepts the second call, issues warning.

With site blocker and AV: Click on Kickass calls site managing adverts. Site blocker prevents site managing adverts from loading. AV doesn't get involved.

In short, AV warns about loading dangerous sites, a site blocker lets you stop sites from loading. AV operates on info gathered by the AV company, a site blocker operates on either URLs input by the user or on info gathered by the site blocker company.

[Big Boy]

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm saying that DB doesn't seem to be set up that way. Hence, I think he may have an anti-virus problem.

Your method will solve the problem for whatever sites are added, but the anti-virus program still remains suspect for anything else.

The question should be, why isn't the anti-virus warning him of the suspect sites?

[Dannie Boy]

I don't use a blocker and although I have sometimes had a second screen open, I'm sure it doesn't happen all the time, but I use it that infrequently, maybe I will check again

[buksida]

Download and scan with this: https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdown ... dwcleaner/

It will clean any browser hijackers and malware.

Recent updates of Firefox have included a lot of unnecessary security certificate checks that often flag or block innocent websites, you can disable it all.

[Homer]

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm saying that DB doesn't seem to be set up that way. Hence, I think he may have an anti-virus problem.

I quoted and responded to you, not DB. He has an anti-virus problem. Your use of kickass detects virus about half the time, so I offered a solution. I believe anti-virus programs are a last line of defense, not something to be relied on when browsing on sites known to be dangerous because even the best anit-virus programs aren't perfect.

[Big Boy]

Thank you, and a good solution it sounds too - I will be investigating in the next day or 2.

[Homer]

Thank you, and a good solution it sounds too - I will be investigating in the next day or 2.

You're welcome. Should you select a site blocker where one inputs URLs to be blocked, I could save you some bother by posting or sending my list of blocked URLs.

[oakdale160]

I need WORD but do not feel like pouring any more money into the bottomless pit of MS. Are the Free d'loads adequate, what about Open Office?

[Ratsima]

I tried Open Office for a while, but it did a poor job of handling Thai script and some complex formatting. (My wife's an attorney and often has to make complex legal documents with Thai script and text boxes.)

More recently I downloaded LibreOffice which seems to do a much better job. It also handles document markup pretty well and opens documents much faster than Word. In fact, the main reason I tried LibreOffice was because I couldn't stand and slow and clunky Word had become on my old Mac Mini.

[oakdale160]

Thank you, ratsima, could you enlighten me --what is document markup?

[Homer]

The core group at OpenOffice had different opinions on the way forward. Not uncommon in open source products. The folks that left OpenOffice to start LibreOffice were most of the best talent at OpenOffice. They started LibreOffice from a version of OpenOffice. That practice is called 'forking' the code. It's not true it means 'Fork U'.

[Ratsima]

Thank you, ratsima, could you enlighten me --what is document markup?

Markup, in this case, means the annotations made on a document when it is revised.

For example, an author might have an editor review a document. If the editor makes a change, the "markup" consists of the change, shown in a different color, along with a description of the change, if needed, in the margin. If the editor deletes a word, there will be an annotation in the margin showing the editor's name, the date and time and something like: "Deleted: relevant".

This is helpful because the original author can quickly see what changes the reviewer made. The author can usually accept or reject changes one by one, or accept/reject all at once.

Of course, it doesn't necessarily be more than one person working on a document. An author might do a draft and then want to track subsequent revisions. Makes it very easy to see what you've done.

LibreOffice seems to handle this transparently while the last version of OpenOffice I tried did not.

[oakdale160]

Thank you, that is very important. I often ask another person to read, correct, add or subtract and improve my work. I hate it if it is returned with corrections unmarked and I have to double-read the two versions.

[Ratsima]

Thank you, that is very important. I often ask another person to read, correct, add or subtract and improve my work. I hate it if it is returned with corrections unmarked and I have to double-read the two versions.

Most modern word processors can do markup, but they call it different things. In the version of Word that we have you turn Markup ON in the Tools menu by selecting Track Changes. But, whether or not the Markup is displayed is controlled in the View menu by selecting Markup. It's slightly different in LibreOffice, but the same functionality is there.

[hhfarang]

^^^ Yes, I use Libre Office on my Linux machine, Open Office, and MS Office on two laptops so I move files between the three and compare them all the time and I agree that Libre is the best of the three. When the free trial of MS Office runs out on my main laptop I will switch it to Libre.