Recent Posts

251

Living Room / Re: Patch your Flash! Version 19.0.0.226 (October 16, 2015)

« Last post by f0dder on October 18, 2015, 05:03 PM »

So, the thing I miss in FF - my main browser at the moment (but probably not for that much longer)

-IainB (October 18, 2015, 04:19 PM)

I wouldn't move to Edge for my main browser experience - while MS definitely have been working hard on improving security, and have done a lot of interesting and nice things both for Edge and Win10, IE + Edge are still going to be the most heavily targeted browsers for a while yet, simply because of market share. That, combined with the lack of security-focused extensions, still makes Firefox the #1 choice.

But interesting the MS is building Flash into Edge, might make it a viable alternative to Chrome for the secondary browser - though I'll obviously still be on Chrome on the work macbook

252

Living Room / Re: Patch your Flash! Version 19.0.0.226 (October 16, 2015)

« Last post by f0dder on October 18, 2015, 04:57 PM »

As I said, I haven't looked at uMatrix yet - but here goes:

The combination of RefControl + Request Policy lets me control which 3rd-party domains get contacted at all, and lets me control whether the HTTP Referer [sic] header is set for the domains I allow to be contacted.

Ghostery both shows trackers as well as blocks them. Does uMatrix block trackes on the 1st-party domain, including both POST and GET based ones? And does it come with a big library of known trackers, or do you have to write your own rules for everything?

NoScript allows me to block scripts (and other active elements) on the 1st-party domain, as well, as it allows me to allow requests (images, stylesheets, ...) on 3rd-party domains without allowing scripts to be executed there. Does uMatrix handle the same usecases (and without a lot of manual rule entries)?

253

Living Room / Re: Patch your Flash! Version 19.0.0.226 (October 16, 2015)

« Last post by f0dder on October 18, 2015, 04:05 PM »

... or just µBlock + uMatrix.

-Tuxman (October 18, 2015, 02:44 PM)

I didn't get to looking at uMatrix yet - does it fully cover what RefControl + RequestPolicy can do?

Ghostery is almost superfluous if you have tight 3rd-party domain blocking, but there might be a few sites that do statistics reporting to their own domain... and I like the overview of trackers it gives

Wouldn't do without NoScript.

254

Living Room / Re: Patch your Flash! Version 19.0.0.226 (October 16, 2015)

« Last post by f0dder on October 18, 2015, 02:41 PM »

I'd recommend using Firefox as your primary browser, without any of Java, Flash or AdobePDF plugins, but with stuff like Adblock Origin, Ghostery, Certificate Patrol and (if you can suffer it) RequestPolicy + RefControl + NoScript.

Whenever you need Flash or Java, open that particular site in Chrome.

255

Developer's Corner / Re: Resources for learning git?

« Last post by f0dder on October 14, 2015, 03:58 AM »

Native equals "not requiring some weird emulation layer", and it matters because of performance, maintainability and quality.

-Tuxman (October 13, 2015, 11:57 AM)

Got any quantifiable data that shows Git suffers performance-wise on Windows? No?

MinGW (unlike Cygwin) is not an emulation layer, any less than libc is. If you're operating by that level of pedantry, you'd be hard pressed to find any "native" Windows software, since pretty much everything depends on the Win32 API, which isn't native.

The mind boggles at the doublethink required for you to be able to call Python "native".

256

Living Room / Re: Ad Industry Attacks Firefox

« Last post by f0dder on October 13, 2015, 09:28 AM »

That sucker is persistent as all heck, and made deliberately so in the code, by Mozilla.

-IainB (October 13, 2015, 09:09 AM)

Got a source code reference that backs up this claim?

Oooh! That's odd! I wonder what we might be able to infer from that?   

-IainB (October 13, 2015, 09:09 AM)

That something is weird with your browser? Works fine here, both on Windows and OSX.

EDIT: Since I needed to test stuff in IE9 and had to whip up a clean Modern.IE VM for that, I installed a fully fresh and add-on free Firefox just for the heck of it  - and both Pocket and Hello could be removed from the toolbar by right-clicking. Of course the stuff is still installed, which I'd prefer it not to be, but it's gone from the toolbar.

257

Living Room / Re: Ad Industry Attacks Firefox

« Last post by f0dder on October 13, 2015, 07:36 AM »

As I'm typing this I look at the sodding compulsory Read Later (Pocket) dropdown button which is taking up useful space in the URL bar. I've subscribed to RIL/Pocket for years, but most of the time it's a disabled overhead because I don't need the thing ON all the time. Now I can't switch this compulsory thing OFF.

-IainB (October 10, 2015, 08:15 AM)

Right-click, "Remove from toolbar", done.

I do wish that Mozilla would stop pushing stuff like that and the chat thingy on us, though. Built-in PDF reader and "Reader View"? Sure, pretty useful. 3rd-party services? Offer via (optional) addons.

258

Coding Snacks / Re: Safe Internet

« Last post by f0dder on October 13, 2015, 07:25 AM »

Contro, would your friend be able to handle using two browsers - IE when he needs to use the digital signature stuff, another for all other browsing? Perhaps two shortcuts on the desktop - "Use the Internet" and another "Use online banking" (or whatever the digital signature stuff is for).

I would suggest Chrome as the "Use the Internet" browser, since it has a built-in Flash player that's a lot safer than the plugin for other browsers, and "ordinary people" seem to still need Flash. Make sure the Java browser plugin is not installed unless it's necessary for the digital signature stuff, and in that case make sure it's only installed in IE. Then add uBlock Origin and Ghostery and most bad stuff is taken care of.

Of course there's nothing that really helps against people who download and run random software, but at least Ghostery + uBlock Origin removes most of the advertisements that would lead to bad software...

259

General Software Discussion / Re: Win 10 Can't Tell One Processor From Another!

« Last post by f0dder on October 13, 2015, 07:16 AM »

Intel Pentium E5200

-CleverCat (October 11, 2015, 02:02 AM)

That's a 64bit CPU.

260

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by f0dder on October 13, 2015, 07:00 AM »

If you went step-by-step from L to R (which was what I did first, just to see) then 6-1*0+2/2= can give "1".
However, elementary maths and any calculator that is programmed to correctly obey the standard computational rules would give "7", so I reckoned that, from the context of IT, "7" would be the "correct" answer. Mind you, I didn't bother working it from R to L...   

-IainB (October 08, 2015, 08:33 AM)

"Going left-to-right" makes no sense - and it's entirely unambiguous when it comes to operator precedence, so the answer is indeed 7.

42÷3(5+2), however...

261

Developer's Corner / Re: Resources for learning git?

« Last post by f0dder on October 13, 2015, 06:50 AM »

that would still classify as native.

-f0dder (October 09, 2015, 06:45 PM)

No.

-Tuxman (October 09, 2015, 06:52 PM)

Then answer my previous question: "What is your definition of native?" - and, while you're add it, elaborate on why it matters.

BTW: How many languages does the git "native" Windows version actually use? Mercurial uses one...

-Tuxman (October 09, 2015, 06:52 PM)

Mercurial is a mix of Python and native modules - core Git is C and shell scripts (and I haven't checked what portion is shell scripts these days).

It would be nice if there was a (maintained) "Git core" package, but the maintainers have decided that most people are better off with the full package... to which I'd have to agree.

262

Developer's Corner / Re: Resources for learning git?

« Last post by f0dder on October 09, 2015, 06:45 PM »

Last time I checked, the Windows version of git was a weird cross-compiled Cygwin build.

-Tuxman (October 09, 2015, 03:57 PM)

Dunno if I've ever seen that - but even if I'm not a fan of Cygwin, that would still classify as native.

And all the Windows builds of Git I've used have been MinGW builds, anyway - and it's what https://git-scm.com/ offers. Yes, that's a big package that includes a bunch of unixy tools, and it would be nice if there was a minimal package that included just the necessary core commandline tools.

But hey, Mercurial requires Python, so that's even less "native"

263

Developer's Corner / Re: Resources for learning git?

« Last post by f0dder on October 09, 2015, 03:56 PM »

No, it does not. Unless you have a weird definition of "native".

-Tuxman (October 06, 2015, 08:13 PM)

What is your definition of native? What makes the Windows version of Git disqualify as being native?

264

Living Room / Re: What are the rules for local v. public index/search of DC Forum + Wayback saves?

« Last post by f0dder on October 06, 2015, 06:03 AM »

why isn't google indexing our pages quickly now.. i have no idea. is there a way to find out? doesn't appear so. is there someone to ask? doesn't appear so.  what do we do? nothing. just wait for the gods of google to decide who they want to favor or disfavor as usual.

-mouser (October 05, 2015, 06:18 PM)

The Google Webmaster Tools say nothing?

265

Living Room / Re: What are the rules for local v. public index/search of DC Forum + Wayback saves?

« Last post by f0dder on October 06, 2015, 06:00 AM »

2. The crawlers of different search engines work differently, and to varying success. Unfortunately, I have to report I like DuckGo's philosophy, but that its engine simply gave me mediocre results a lot like you are saying, you can be staring at the relevant DC post in one window and the DuckGo simply refuses to pull it.

Then change engines and as much as I *don't* like their philosophy, Google IS basically the best except weird cases. I've done the same search in like 4 engines (including Binged-Yahoo and Startpage) and they come up with different results of varying quality. So it can't be a block per se if Google finds it and Duck doesn't.

-TaoPhoenix (October 05, 2015, 04:35 PM)

That's my experience as well. I tried using DuckDuckGo for a while after Google was forced to obey the atrocious "right to be forgotten" EU crap, but DDG had pathetic results

266

General Software Discussion / Re: Don't remember the name of a specific virtualization software, please help

« Last post by f0dder on October 05, 2015, 03:35 PM »

SandboxIE?

267

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by f0dder on October 05, 2015, 03:22 PM »

It looks like they may finally be making a movie from it.

-MilesAhead (October 05, 2015, 02:58 PM)

I hope they don't - it's a pretty good book, no reason to screw it up with a bad teal-and-orange Hollywood crapover

268

Developer's Corner / Re: Resources for learning git?

« Last post by f0dder on October 05, 2015, 03:21 PM »

git suffers from the wrong people using it. As everyone is using git, the whole thing is a growing bubble. Waiting for the explosion...

-Tuxman (October 05, 2015, 04:30 AM)

How is that even supposed to make sense?

269

General Software Discussion / Re: Which is faster: copying from mounted AOMEI image or from external HD via USB 2?

« Last post by f0dder on September 22, 2015, 05:34 PM »

USB2 has a 60MB a second limit -- but the problem is it often only reaches ~30 maximum -- will depend on your external drive and file sizes

-tomos (September 22, 2015, 08:39 AM)

The raw USB2 link has a 480Mbit/s theoretical limit, yes, but because of protocol overhead you'll never ever reach that - and the (kind of) people who saw it fit to use the theoretical link limit as advertisement should be dragged out back and done with.

Theoretically one should be able to reach about 35MB/s of "interesting" bandwidth, but it's usually in the 25MB/s ballpark.

270

General Software Discussion / Re: Newer password keepers/form-fillers - anyone using Dashlane or 1Password?

« Last post by f0dder on September 22, 2015, 05:12 PM »

Redownloaded StickyPassword on OSX today, it's gone from StickYpassword_rev388.dmg to *_rev435.dmg - and now I was able to sign in to the existing account. Local WiFi sync works, and the BitDuJour discount was still in effect, so yeah, there we go.

The OSX version still needs a lot of polish compared to the Windows one, it doesn't have a top-bar icon like, say, 1Password, the preferences menu doesn't have a lot of options, there's no passphrase generator, and currently only Chrome and Safari addons.

Hm, it's storage format is SQLite, which is nice - it seems like only the entry data itself is encrypted, though, rather than a block-level encryption of the entire database.

271

Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

« Last post by f0dder on September 22, 2015, 04:44 PM »

21's Bitcoin Computer is a Raspberry Pi-powered mining tool

Raspberry Pi - the DIY computer celebrity.

-Arizona Hot (September 22, 2015, 02:11 PM)

Hrm, sounds like a moneygrab. Even with a "custom mining chip", it's hardly going to be able to generate any worthwhile amount of BC, considering people are running massive amounts of monstrous custom ASICs.

272

Living Room / Re: Is it reasonable to *require* phone nr. when purchasing software?

« Last post by f0dder on September 22, 2015, 04:09 PM »

I would probably go elsewhere, unless we're talking really specialized software with an enterprise pricetag... and then I wouldn't be the one buying, anyway.

273

General Software Discussion / Re: Newer password keepers/form-fillers - anyone using Dashlane or 1Password?

« Last post by f0dder on September 22, 2015, 01:40 PM »

The Master Password as a way to access one's sticky account was addressed in the beta forum.

-Innuendo (September 21, 2015, 08:37 PM)

They do have some loading-animation thing when you sign into the forum, so I kinda guessed they might be doing something like this - it makes me a bit uneasy in closed-source software, especially when it's not a FAQ bullet mentioning the algorithm. OTOH, it can be safer than a password if implemented correctly.

274

General Software Discussion / Re: AVG Antivirus Plans to Collect & Sell Your Personal Data to Advertisers?

« Last post by f0dder on September 22, 2015, 01:37 PM »

Other than OS upgrades, when was the last time you saw the MSE *engine* upgraded (not signatures)?

-Innuendo (September 21, 2015, 08:41 PM)

Not needed to protect against the stuff regular users get hit with.

The really nasty stuff will never be discovered by anti-malware, but then again, those shouldn't be a worry to you unless you're into international terrorism, or are setting up the next Silk Road

275

General Software Discussion / Re: AVG Antivirus Plans to Collect & Sell Your Personal Data to Advertisers?

« Last post by f0dder on September 21, 2015, 03:32 PM »

I've said it before, and I'll repeat ad nauseam: just stick with Microsoft's anti-malware.