How Can I Get The latest Updates?
In Vista, Microsoft have made it rather easy to get to the Update page. You simply Click the Start button, click All Programs, then click Windows Update.
Do you need them?
Well, yes, absolutely. Just think of it this way, the bad guys nowadays don’t want to destroy your computer, they want to use it to make them money. How do they do that? Well they need to get a piece of software installed so that they can command your computer to do their bidding for them, it may be used to send spam mail, or it may be used to send “click throughs” on adverts that then makes a small commission for the bad guys. Either way it is YOUR computer not theirs.
So, how do they get their nasty little programs on your machine? Well they trick you into installing them, sometimes silently by directing you to a specially crafted web page or PDF file or any number of other ways. The key is that wherever they send you has been specifically coded to take advantage of flaws in software that you have installed on your computer. Now if you stay up to date with your software programs then their is a much better chance that you will not be vulnerable to their attacks.
Remember it is not just your operating system that you need to keep updated, but EVERY piece of software you have installed, even if you don’t use it, the mere fact that an old software program is on your computer could leave you open to a stealth attack.
So, do yourself a favour, get rid of programs you no longer need or use and keep all the others up to date.
Here is one little freebie to help you with this task. FileHippo Update Checker.
Filed under Computers, Windows by on Nov 12th, 2010. Comment. 
Adobe have issued an out of cycle release for Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader and Acrobat. This addresses a critical vulnerabilty in
- Adobe Flash Player 10.1.85.3 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating system
- Adobe Flash Player 10.1.95.2 and earlier for Android
- Adobe Reader 9.4 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX
- Adobe Acrobat 9.4 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
This vulnerability could cause a crash allowing an attacker to take control of the affected system. This has been found in the wild as an active exploit.
Filed under Computers, Updates by on Nov 17th, 2010. Comment.
There has been a torrent of problems with Adobe products over the last several months. My XP machine informed me of yet another Update from Adobe which I applied successfully, about 15 minutes later I get a notice from my Secunia software that Adobe reader needs an update. Having just installed a new security patch from Adobe I was a little surprised. So I fired up Adobe Reader and had it check for updates, there weren’t any, so I took a closer look at the version of Adobe Reader that I had, it was version 9.4.0.195.
Secunia offered a download solution for the problem which I grabbed and installed, a file called AdbeRdrUpd9.msp running this file told me that it was a patch for Adobe Reader 9.4.1 Great! I ran the program and re-scanned with Secunia which was now happy so I went back and looked at Adobe Reader again and found that it had been upgraded to version 9.4.1.222
Why didn’t the old version find that there was an update available when it was told to check for one? I have cut Adobe tons of slack over these recurring problems, as they are a large company with a lot of products to maintain, but I just can’t keep checking and re-checking different ways to see if there are new updates available, if I had to do that with all the software that I use then I would be spending about 12 hours a day just looking for software updates. I am sorry Adobe, but my only conclusion can now be that your Software is SO seriously flawed that it has become TOTALLY useless to me and you have proved that you are TOTALLY incompetent when it comes to repairing and maintaining it, therefore I choose to abandon Adobe products wherever I can. Goodbye Adobe Reader, you are first in front of my firing squad.
I am moving to Foxit Reader.
Thank goodness for Secunia Personal Software Inspector http://secunia.com/products/consumer/PSI/you are a life saver!
Filed under Computers, Updates by on Nov 18th, 2010. Comment.
Well Adobe have done it again! They have a real knack of really upsetting me at the moment. There is another update, this one is a new version of Adobe Reader. We are now at version 10.0.0
The annoying thing about this new version is that when you install it, it fails to retain your settings from the previous installations. This means that the two big security default settings have been returned to their insecure status.
So, to become safer once again if you are going to be using Adobe Reader this is what you must do.
Start up Adobe Reader and hover over Edit, mouse down and click Preferences…
In preferences there are two settings to change from the default, the first one is JavaScript, click on the category JavaScript and make sure the box which says “Enable Acrobat JavaScript” does NOT have a tick in it.
Then click on the category Trust Manager and make sure the box which says “Allow opening of non-PDF file attachments with external applications” does NOT have a tick in it.
In my opinion you may be better off just un-installing Adobe Reader completely and use something like Foxit Reader instead.
Filed under Computers, Software, Updates by on Nov 20th, 2010. Comment.
