What is your security setup these days?

It blocks pop-ups of the Pope so your right on both counts Frank.

Regards Eck

 

Hi All,

I was wondering if there is anymore to add to my setup.

At the moment i am using a hardened windows vista 32 bits ( all security updates).

User account with full UAC enabled.

Behind a Fritzbox with NAT (with longest password possible).
Wlan password with 64 password strenght and 32 SSID.

with the following:

Malwarebytes anti malware pro.
AVG Internet security 2015.
Malwarebytes anti exploit pro (all applications and running windows processes added).
Software Restriction Policy.
Hostsman.
Sandboxie Free version.
Zemana Antilogger free.
Firefox with add ons: Noscript, adblocker plus and self destructing cookies in privacy mode.
All internet facing applications up to date are run with lower priorities in sandboxie.

Does anybody know if there is still something I have missed?

Would appreciate any suggestions as within IT you always can improve it.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Paul.

 

Thanks for info about BleachBit. Never used it before. Now I'm trying the portable version. At first run on my PC it seems to clean roughly twice more space than CCleaner. Is it safe if I check all boxes with winapp2.ini? Thank you.

 

Welcome to the forums!

I'm sure it's inbuilt Windows Firewall.

 

I've had a play with Bleachbit, following the recommendation.. I had never heard of it until yesterday. It did a good job, and clawed back 2gb of hard drive space. But, as you say, it has a horrendously bad UI. I like the idea of using Winapp2.ini in CCleaner, but I can't find an option for it anywhere? Can you point me in the right direction please?

Cheers!

 

Download Winapp2.ini from this link hxxp://www.winapp2.com/downloads.html and place the ini file inside ccleaner directory under program files.
Ccleaner will take about a minute to load with winapp2.ini files because there are thousands of entries in it. What I usually do is for everyday use I rename winapp2.ini to winapp2.inix. Whenever I want to do thorough cleaning I rename the file to .ini

 

Bleachbit by default, even without any INI is still roughly twice improved over CCleaner. CCleaner takes 1-3 minutes to load with winapp2.ini, Bleachbit loads instantly, but when cleaning up huge numbers of files BB is far more efficient. I cleaned 43GIGS of temp off a machine in 4 minutes with Bleachbit, when I tried to use CCleaner on a similar machine, it was still attempting to clean after almost an hour. It's not efficiently coded IMO.

FYI: Edward Snowden used Bleachbit, not that it matters, but a lot of pretty privacy aware folks use BB as opposed to CCleaner.

 

I agree that on default Bleachbit probably cleans more, but after using winapp2.ini what they clear should be the same. BB might be faster on bigger volumes but since I generally don't have anything over 2 gigs I don't notice it. Don't get me wrong I really like BBit however I can't stand its interface.

@MetalOllie
You can either manually update winapp2.ini for ccleaner or you can use CCEnhancer on google, which will do that for you.

@Solarlynx
It's not exactly safe to checkmark everything. It may delete something you are using since that list is too extensive (like flash game saves, steam installers, etc). You should inspect before your first cleanup.

 

Windows Firewall

 

if Winapp2 makes them clean mostly the same, then I would recommend using the one with the faster, more sound programming - hence Bleachbit. It loads instantly with Winapp2.ini, whereas CCleaner takes a considerable amount of time.

So either way, I think BB is a better choice. But that's based on performance, and my opinion. Interface matters not to me for simple cleaning apps I see once a week or so.

 

BleachBit being open source is a huge plus as well and also likely why Snowden preferred it over CCleaner. But I believe he used Linux as well at times, and BleachBit being cross platform also a plus.

 

@Mayahana I installed BleachBit, enabled comunity.ini and then restarted it. Next I checked all cleaning sections, but left some items unchecked as per the recommendations form BleachBit.

When I did the cleaning, BleachBit started deleting a lot of files from my SysWOW64 folder. I wasn't paying attention, but Kerish Doctor kicked in an alerted me a few times that is was restoring needed system files. I terminated BleachBit, and hope I my Windows install isn't badly corrupted. I tried to do a sfc/scannow but get a message that Windows Resource Protection could not start the repair service.

 

Probably wise to hit CANCEL on ALL popups from ANY application using Winapp2.ini.

I've used Bleachbit w/winapp2.ini on probably 3,000 machines over the last couple of years, and never had an issue. But I always hit 'cancel' on any popup to be sure.

 

@Mayahana I did that, as the suggestions about what not to clean made sense. I am running Tweaking.com's System Repair now to see if it can help, before I reboot to what may be a non bootable Windows.

I attempted to run Windows Repair, after doing a reinstall as it was complaining that it was missing some files and wouldn't start. But, it just hangs when starting. After the initial check for missing files, the windows closes, but the task is still running in the background.

I did a scan Kerish Doctor, and it found 349 missing fonts, and 285 missing system sounds.

I'm going to attempt to do a System Restore now.

 

CCleaner with WinApp2 would have done the same thing, as they use the same entries. But I find this highly puzzling, as I said, I've run it for years, on thousands of systems.

Are you sure you hit 'cancel' on every warning prompt? The only issues I have heard of are if you ignore the warnings.

 

I've used CCleaner for years, I usually clean once a day, takes about 3 seconds so time is not an issue. I also clean my registry about once a week, it has never borked anything. I find that is not overly agressive with cleaning and is one of the best, if not the best, programs for this, at least for the way I use it.

The problems that Roger M is having is exactly the reason why I wouldn't use Bleachbit.

 

No, the problems he is having is because he chose to clean something he wasn't supposed to. Everyone else here has no issue. Bleachbit is the most used, most developed, and most tested cleaner in existence.

I wasn't the one that told people to start using Winapp2.ini.. Bleachbit WITHOUT that cleans roughly twice as well as CrapCleaner.

 

I agree. I usually use /AUTO switch to run it, so I don't have to open the interface - it just does it's thing in background. It is usually cleaning for a second or two.

 

I selected cancel on every prompt. I was able to complete a system restore - although it took about 45 minutes, which didn't help as my computer won't boot now, either to Windows 7 (which is what I ran BleachBit under) or Windows 10.

Maybe the use of the community ini file caused the issues.

 

It's probably cause of the ini file. As I said previously said, you need to check what each entry deletes since the file contains huge number of points it might delete something you might need. However this is the first time I hear winnapp2/bbit trashing any system over the years I used them (or CC with winapp2)

 

thanks

 

Winapp2.ini

 

Never did an A/B comparison with Bleachbit & CCrap cleaner. Is my best and safest bet to run Bleachbit at the default down load settings?

 

Ditto. CCleaner may not be the staunchest cleaner out there, but I've never encountered reviews where it boinked a system either. I like squeaky clean as much as anybody else, as long as I'm not dialing 911 for the Geek Squad to rescue my poinsettias in the interim.

 

Thank you.

Thank you. I think I'll try to endure its ugly interface.

Good advice I'll follow this.

The last question: is it OK to use portable BB over installed?