Posts Tagged ‘software’
Stay away from the new Rogers anti-virus
I followed the email from Rogers (my ISP) that told me they were dropping Symantec and I should install their new anti-virus offering. I should have known better, but I don’t know what came over me. It’s my own stupid fault, and I’ll never get those two hours back.
The email told me that I “need to upgrade to our NEW Rogers Online Protection before June 30th, 2009″, and that “Rogers Online Protection replaces the [Symantec] security suite” we previously received for free, for being a Rogers customer. It sent me to rogers.com/upgradesecurity which bounced me to a page from which I downloaded the installer.
Just as their email promised, “Upgrading to the NEW Rogers Online Protection is free and easy” other than having to reboot, which is not an unusual experience when I’m running Windows.
However, after the reboot, things were far from easy. Read more »
Upgrade Adobe Flash Player
From the Security Mentor blog:
You almost certainly have it installed as a browser plugin: it’s what makes those animated ads work.
It also has serious security vulnerabilities that could allow your computer to be taken over if you visit the wrong web site (or if a legitimate web site displays the wrong ads).
Adobe’s Security bulletin: Flash Player update available to address security vulnerabilities says the affected software versions: Adobe Flash Player 9.0.48.0 and earlier, 8.0.35.0 and earlier, and 7.0.70.0 and earlier, and it affects all platforms.
Basically, no matter whether you’re on Windows, Linux or Mac, upgrade to 9.0.115.0 now!
Can you see me now?
I’ve updated my Instant Messaging client from Gaim to Pidgin (same product, new name) but they’ve made some GUI changes and I’m not entirely sure that I’m online via all my usual IM aliases – can you let me know if you can see me please?
Top 10 Firefox plugins
I was just updating the two machines where I tend to run Firefox the most (work laptop and games PC) to make sure the Extensions (plugins, add-ons, call them what you will) were the same and up to date, and I thought I should do a Top 10 list of my favourites … so here it is. Some of these were installed ages ago and may well be superseded by some shiny new toy, so please let me know of any replacements and your favourites.
[Note: links are to the Mozilla site unless otherwise noted]
- del.icio.us Bookmarks
- All-In-One Sidebar
- Adblock Plus
- Update Notifier
- Google Browser Sync [Google] (would be higher up this list if it was more reliable)
- NoScript
- netcraft toolbar [netcraft]
- Google Preview [Google]
- Deepest Sender = blog client
- ShowIP
All WordPress 2.1.1 users take note:
Long story short: If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.
Apparently a hacker cracker gained access to one of their servers and inserted some dodgy code!
If your blog is running 2.1.1, please upgrade immediately and do a full overwrite of your old files, especially those in wp-includes. Check out your friends blogs and if any of them are running 2.1.1 drop them a note and, if you can, pitch in and help them with the upgrade.
Read more at the WordPress site. If you’re running anything older than v2 you might want to consider upgrading too.
