Downloading : how dangerous is it?

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

No, because they can’t detect that accurately without conflicting with user’s privacy… E.g. Skynet (Belgian provider) tells they can monitor how much you transfer through ADSL. That’s not (yet) true. Maybe they can aproximate, but nothing more. Believe me. And technically, you can hardly slow down one connection.

What would be possible is that, due to a high number of users on a branch of the network, a longer distance to the next “relay”, or some damage to the carrier, a connection is slower.

Add to that some performance related problems that can arise in your PC.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

Do some providers punish people who download too much by slowing down their internetconnection? I think it happens a lot, and that’s the cause of my problem. Does anyone have experience with this?

RE: Cookies and more

Geforce, I do warn you to watch out with Ad-Aware. First back-up everything you want to delete before you relly delete it. There’s a function for it in Ad-Aware. My dad’s PC was once infected with hundreds of files of spyware. A program even replaced Win-sock with it’s own version! Ad-aware threw it away, but Windows refused to install a new one. I had to format the entire C: drive and reinstall everything thanks to lousy spyware.

RE: Cookies and more

Ive heard the browser on staroffice can be configured to prevent alot of ads and other junk from effecting your computer.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

Ah yes, rebooting once a day for a gaming – word processing – shareware trying computer is also a very goooooood thing!

And, opening a hotline? Yep, but it wouldn’t be 5 euro }>

Cookies and more

It seems to work, the addware software. It took some time, but it found already hundreds of files I never knew about. Does it also delete cookies for example? I have restricted cookies only to this site, hotmail and my bank-account.

Is there program where you can avoid those annoying pop-up screens. There’s nothing that irritates me more than seeing porn when visiting aviation sites or even worse … getting adds of aviation-equipment when visiting porn :D.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

I’ve got 256 MB ram, so that should do it I reckon. I do have that little GATOR-program installed. Will uninstall it ASAP, but the Ad-awar seems to work, have already deleted about 100 files, including cookies.

As I told you, my disk is already defragmented. I’ll have to reboot my system anyway, as I have bought a new processor.

Anyway, thanks for the information, man. You should open a hotline and ask 5 Euro’s a call, like the others.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

Benjamin,

You have enough hdd free space.

do a defrag, it will be useful. But don’t be surprised if it takes ages, it’ss normal 😉

Do you have anything from gator installed? If so, de-install it ASAP!!!

If you’re running Win2k / XP, look at how much free ram you have, and how big the swapfile is (in the task manager)

Maybe you have too few ram.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

Well, I’m going to install the software JJ. I really hope it helps, because I don’t know why they put those hidden files on your HD, but it sucks. I also changed my cookie-filter from medium to the highest.

Vortex, possible yes, our computers are connected with 2 Ethernet HUBs which also slows down a lot, but the other PCs don’t seem to have a problem with it. Besides that, my 30 GG are split into a 1O GB C-drive and a 20 GB D-drive. My current computer is a P-III 750, the other two are new P-IV-1800 or something (don’t have an idea, my brother is the IT). Maybe that helps, but I don’t have enough money to beef up the computer so I’ll just sticks with JJs plan.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

Thanks all for the info!

A couple of days ago I used an online translator and got a present from them, something called trickler, a spy ware.
Norton prevented it from rewriting my boot record and ZoneAlarm prevented it from connecting to the internet. (I´m permanently connected via broadband.)
I got rid of the obvious files, then I found Ad-Aware and installed it. Ad-Aware found left overs but nothing else.
It seems like a decent anti virus program and a decent fire wall give you notfication when such programs install themselves in the hiding.

My computer is however, at times, slow to connect to and to up-date web pages. Anyone know if it can be AdSubtract that´s the cause?

Christer 🙂

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

JJ is right, you probably got somekind of spyware installed on to your computer. Your 30GB of hard drive is plenty, but how’s your C drive? Make sure your C drive always have a couple of GBs left for virtual memory temp space always help. You probably only need to defrag once a while. How fast is your computer? If you have anything above low end PIIIs, it’s most likely has nothing to do with your computer speed. But, sometimes when the ethernet card is dying (Certain 3Com cards are known for this after a couple of years of service) it really slows down too. Good luck speeding up.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

GZYL, that’s basically what Ad-Aware does.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

Christer… You know, I’m not sure!! All I know is I chatted to some computer buff… he went on the net… and in about 30 seconds gave me a floppy disk and told me to run it!! It wouldn’t run on my PC… might have been an XP thing!! But anyway… it lists the files you need to get rid of… so he did it manually!!

Sorry I can’t be of more help!

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 01-09-02 AT 10:31 PM (GMT)]There’s a program called Ad-Aware that checks your system for spyware and the like. I use it for quite a few years now, first on my dad’s computer (which was badly infected with spyware thanks to Kazaa and IMesh) and now on my own. I have no problems with spyware anymore these days. You can find the program at http://www.lavasoftusa.com.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

GZYL!

Which program did You run?
Where on the net did You find it?
Does it identify and remove all such files or was it specifically the one You had?

Thanks in advance,
Christer 🙂

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 01-09-02 AT 07:35 PM (GMT)]@ Brad,

My downloading speed, well it supposed to be like one 750 KB a second or so, but with KaZaa it’s sometimes a lot slower. That ofcourse also depends on the connection of the user from whom you are downloading. I don’t think home computers are really made for downloading.

@ Frank,

Will do what you told me. Also, the game sites you said work perfectly, but I better buy the games in the shop I guess. I already defragmented my disk in a C: “data”- drive and a D: “games + downloads” drive.

Here’s the information from the C: (10 GB)

5116670 KB total disk space.
3020160 KB in 23689 files.
9968 KB in 1010 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
56914 KB in use by the system.
27632 KB occupied by the log file.
2029628 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
1279167 total allocation units on disk.
507407 allocation units available on disk.

Here’s the information from the D: (20 GB)

24908750 KB total disk space.
3567212 KB in 9143 files.
2556 KB in 727 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
76814 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
21262168 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
6227187 total allocation units on disk.
5315542 allocation units available on disk.

Hope that helps a bit, these digits are like Chinese to me. Anyway, I don’t know if defragmenting your HD really helps.

@ Primer,

You mean “Comer, beber, foder”? Learned them from my cousin when he went to Portugal. But you Brazilians have ofcourse, a very similar reputation }>. Latino’s :7.

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

1) go under dos, type chkdsk (once for each drive letter), tell us what free space you have left.
2) make a defragmentation
3) install Win2k or WinXP, you won’t need reinstalling exery 3 months, unless you install every shareware you find around }>

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

Ben, What is your download speed? In southern california, people with cable connection can get a Mb a sec. And whats your processor speed and how much ram do you have?

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

Geforce,

Try to delete all unnecessary files, uninstall all programs you dont use and buy some extra RAMs. It really helps a lot. Formatting your computer once a 3 months is pretty good too.

P.S.: I really loved the comments that appears below your posts. All the 3 basic points of living. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Regards,
Primer55

RE: Downloading : how dangerous is it?

There’s a file somewhere which tells your PC to run slowly, I had this problem with I-Mesh. My Pc still ran slowly after I got rid of it… but, there’s a program on the net which will delete this file, and my PC was back to normal!!