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I just came across a folder with shortcut links to 151 files and url's that I'd visited/opened/created!
I deleted the whole lot after copying them to floppy just in case.
I'm sure some people might be happy to know about this...
And if you have insight this, please pass it on.
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Recent
What the recent folder is is a folder that keeps a record of what you’ve opened. View it in details and you’ll have a date and time of access.
Lance.
Thanks Lance1.
Call me paranoid, but I don't like any means of potential spyware/malware such as index.dat file contents, cookies, history files. log files, etc left on the pc.
I use Spider, Xcleaner, Cleanup!, Ad-aware, regleaner, trojancheck 5....
to clear it all out.
I didn't know about this particular log until today.
Unders Windows (in Explorer) there is a Recent file which is usually hidden, but it only keeps track of things opened on the computer. However, it can become quite large if not cleaned out once in a while. I removed the hidden tick and now it's handy to clean out.
Hadn't noticed the Recent in Office, glad you brought it up.
^dAvEy^, thanks for the tip, had 32 megs in there...
The items in the Recent folder are just links. How could you have 32MB of links? That's thousands and thousands of links. Are you sure you didn't accidentally delete the actual files?
I don't quite understand the paranoia about log files and internet temporary files. Who are you trying to hide this information from? What sites do you visit that you don't want others to know about? If you don't want other users of your computer to see your recent file list, shouldn't you be concerned about them seeing the actual files on the hard drive? Anyone who could find the recent documents list can just as easily find the actual documents they point to and read them, print them, or make copies of them.
Hiya jholloway...
>Unders Windows (in Explorer) there is a Recent file which is usually hidden ... I removed the hidden tick and now it's handy to clean out.
Cleanup! and XCleaner get that one! ;)
>Hadn't noticed the Recent in Office, glad you brought it up.
I had a hunch some might be happy to know about it.
By the way, ZoneAlarm has at least one log that I think oughta be perged periodically - I wonder how many log, dat, bak, or whatever files/directories there are, what they're recording, and why, and if there's any optional benign mainenance that could help narrowpotential opportunities for privacy/security to be compomised.
Hi to you, Junker bud!
Nice work on Bugs, by the way.
>... thanks for the tip, had 32 megs in there...
like us all, I'm always happy to help out.
Casey820 kinda got a point though, you think?
How DID those shortcuts amount to 32 mgs - 1 k at a time? :confused: guess it's possible
and hi to you too, Casey820...
You know, it's neither here nor there to me if you don't care if people are digging around in your stuff for anything they might be able sell, like personal (ie not public!) information - , or potentially use in ways contrawise to your interest. Personally, I like to decide when I air my laundry and I'll do what I can to defend my right to do so.Respectfully, bollocks!Quote:
1 - What sites do you visit that you don't want others to know about?
2 - ...shouldn't you be concerned about them seeing the actual files on the hard drive?
3 - Anyone who could find the recent documents list can just as easily find the actual documents they point to and read them, print them, or make copies of them.
1 - do you really feel you have the right to ask that question?
2 - of course, the files this folder's shortcut files are pointing to are cleaned out regularly, but the shortcuts do name the files, and many are url's.
3 - surely, you are not suggesting we are concerning ourselves with shortcuts but ignoring their targets, are you?
You'll see above that we are dealing with the recent documents.
I was being a tad facetious when I said "Call me paranoid, but..." becasue:both from jerryctx's siteQuote:
When speaking of computer systems, never use the word secure
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, former U.S. Secretary of Defense
There is no such thing as PC Security, only degrees of insecurity.
Just a' bit a' twit,,,a neat lil' program written by one of my favs (Neil J. Rubenking) over at PC Mag is HD Valet. It will clean out many temp files/folders including the ZA log and the Temp Internet File with ease...
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,26680,00.asp
Hi Ridgerunr - I've calmed down...:eek:
Say, by chance, have you tried and compared HDValet with Cleanup! and/or XCleaner?
I think XCleaner is a mighty tight, stable little yootie!
Might just HDV whirl to eval ffor myself for mysel, but s far as it's stability, etc, you're more qualified to field that Q than I!
Casey820, Davey has covered the reasons pretty good. Let me put it another way. You have any kids? A daughter?
Imagine your daughter walking around the mall, and there's this weirdo in a lab coat, pencil and clipboard in hand, and he's following your daughter around wherever she goes. He's always looking over her shoulder, sniffling and marking his little chart. How about when she's looking at underwear? Or tampons? Do you mind if he notes her bra size? If she uses regular or Super Soakies?
Maybe you wouldn't mind that shill coming into your home, either, and see what brand of toilet paper you use, or how many times a day you go. And do you have one of those "Saver Cards" from the big chain grocery store?
SOME doors should NEVER be opened, you know what I'm saying? They're sometimes next to impossible to close.
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
Haven't tried the new vers. of XCleaner yet,but givin' it some thought.Looks like they've squeezed the bugs out now.
My regimen is to use Juoni's Reg Cleaner(original),then Toni Art's Easy Cleaner(just the unecessary file and reg cleaner portions),then i run HDValet,go to the C:\Windows\ Cookie folder and use Cookie Muncher to blow away the ones i haven't made read only to save.Then Ad Aware and Spider115. Of course the defaults: Disk cleanup/scandisk/and,,,when Spidey wants me to reboot i run the ol' version of Shopvac from Jim(reboot)DeLong from the dos start menu(command prompt).I know-i know,,people have grumped about Shopvac not "cleaning" the registry,but it "does"tighten it up a' bit. Then i run scanreg /fix,back to Windoze,stomp the runnin' progs with End It All(again) and run Defrag,SFC,IE repair tool,reboot back to dos prompt and run scanreg /fix /opt(in case IE repair actually "did" do something in reg)then back to Windoze... Bit of a' bother,,but it's kept my ol' Win98FE goin' for quite awhile with minimum probs...:)
Oh yeah,,I've never had a prob with HDValet. Except for the temp internet files(which it deletes right away)it puts anything it grabs from a temp folder into the recycle bin just in case of a prob later and you can restore from there. Personally,i just read the log file it offers for view after running and delete "that" also,along with the "bin" stuff with "disc cleanupper"...
JoJo Gunn
well put :)
Ridgerunr
likewise - super post - a real keeper!
Hi All,
I too get frustrated with the amount of garbage left on my systems by all sorts of programs, and I am very worried about internet security as I have two young daughters.
Perhaps you have seen some of the UK news recently - unrelated to temporary files BUT two ten year old girls have vanished (together) and the police, having taken away the families PC's have now decided that they probably have been abducted by someone they spoke to on the net. The girls have been missing since last Sunday.
No amount of paranoia or security is too much when you have children!
VP
Actually, there is a type of virtual person following each of us around the mall writing down what we buy and where we go. Do you use charge cards? How 'bout those coupon cards at grocery stores? Ever fill out a warranty card? We've never had much privacy. This problem didn't start with the personal computing era or internet era.
And no, I don't have a daughter. I don't have children. I live alone, so no one else uses my computer. I have a hardware firewall, and I store personal documents on external media in a locked box. I shred all documents that have my name on (rather than throwing them in the trash).
I'm still not understanding why people care about the recent document list. All those recent documents are probably stored on your hard drive where other people and hackers can get them. Deleting the recent document list only prevents other users of your computer from seeing what you've just worked on. It doesn't prevent them from seeing the docuents. They can still go to the folders where they're stored and read them.
Just lately NAV as detected and blocked waves of infected incoming e-mail's.
Yesterday I received an e-mail stating that I had sent this person an uninvited e-mail that had a virus attachment. This has happened even though I do not know this person and his address is not in any of my e-mail folders. I apologised and explained that I had not sent him the email/virus. He later explained that he had traced the e-mail back to my address.
When I ran a virus check, it found the 'swporta Trojan' in my system, I assume that the e-mail was somehow sent as a result of it. Had this person not contacted me, I would not have been aware of it's existence.
What I don't understand is how NAV failed to detect its incoming but found its presents later. Also how could this infected e-mail be sent without my knowledge?
So I would welcome some form of software that automatically detect such things.
Regarding wiping sensitive material off your hard drive, I seem to remember reading that this action would be in vain as deleted information can still be recovered even if the drive has been reformatted.
Dave
It isn't so much privacy and security I'm worried about, I get rid of anything that is so private I don't want anyone else to see it. It's that all these 'things' we're talking about take up a lot of room over time. I found stuff that's been on this machine since I first fired it up, and first went on line, well over two years ago. Recent, for instance (the hidden one), had files listed that were long gone. I don't remember how many kb (or mb) it was but a lot. And when one only has 6 gb it helps to clear out anything not needed. It also cuts the defrag time, &c. The various 'recent', index, log, txt, gif, urls, &c add up over time, and over not so much time. My opinion is if you don't need it get rid of it.
Personally I'm a throwback, Casey820. I don't believe in plastic. And no warranty cards that asks me if I like magazines and how much I make a year. I was able to afford their product, and that's all they need to know. I don't fill out any of those "Win a Free Vacation" things you see all over the place, either.
The reason we don't have as much privacy nowadays is because we don't demand it. Those who remain silent get everything they "ask" for.
As far as the list of viewed sites, and the use of the Spider program, etc- I'm pretty new to home computing, although I've used various ones at work. Now I have one in my home, and slowly but surely I'm in awe and disgust at the tactics the slimebags out there use. It took me a little while to figure out what BackWeb was, or why HP so conveniently put Wild Tangent games on this thing, and how and why Works kept phoning home after I supposedly turned off updating altogether. Could it be because of Money? Nobody's gonna convince me that it was an "oversight" that a Microsoft program with the ability to update wasn't connected to the master switch, so to speak. Just what is so important that a word processor/spreadsheet has to phone home for? And there's no explanation of just what was updated. You'll see nothing but a very small box flash saying "Updating Works", and you'd better look fast too. How do I know that somehow that list of visited sites, the one Spider goes after, isn't transferred to MS? If you'll open up that .dat file you'll notice it's nothing basically but text, and a text file can be quickly uploaded from the slowest of dialups. I'll never understand why that list of months old sites HAS to be protected, and a program like Spider has to be created to get rid of it, unless it's important to someone outside of my machine.
Consider Bonzi Buddy, and Comet Cursor, and Gator, etc, that pretends to be something, so the uninitiated will download it. My friend's kid grabbed Bonzi Buddy off a gaming site last month. The kid didn't know any better, but now some spy is able to keep up with every member of the family who uses the computer. Certainly that's not ethical, so why after all these years are those places still around?
For those of us who care about all this stuff, it's a war over principles. Who we're up against is nothing more than intruders in our homes. What else can you call them? They don't share any of the money they make off of us.
Man oh man am I grateful for all the smart ones around here who know of and keep us posted on all the slimy goings on.
And Casey, forgive me if I got rough. The row of "angry faces" weren't directed at you personally. It's the garbage in total I'm so hot about. I hope that the questions you ask are out of ignorance about the system(as I still have about a lot of things), and not because you're too accepting.
***********************
And spike6, you're right. If someone really wants to find something out, they can. The FBI or IRS can even read an HD that's been wiped several times, by reading residual magnetic traces, or putting the HD platters under an electron microscope or whatever. Of course that means someone has to physically take apart your machine. Hopefully we can at least hinder the thugs who try to enter through the modem.
....and thanks for the kind words, Casey. :)
EDIT- Casey? I meant Davey. Dang, "oldstimers" disease must be setting in. :o
please excuse my sarcasm being used to make this point:Quote:
Originally posted by spike6
Regarding wiping sensitive material off your hard drive, I seem to remember reading that this action would be in vain as deleted information can still be recovered even if the drive has been reformatted.Dave
You mean why bother? So there's no reason to implement futile illusionary preventative measures becasue anyone and everyone looking to access and/or malign all content on, and stable functioning of the computer knows how to bypass all means to maximize security? Such means can't even make it more difficult for them? Man, that's discouraging and depressing! I give up! I feel like an idiot for wasting my time. :eek: :rolleyes: :eek:
No offense, Davey, but I think he just isn't sure about how they can read things supposedly erased. I don't imagine he looks at any of us as if we're going through exercises in futility, especially since he's been hit by viruses. Likely he sees quite the opposite, since being slammed.
And spike6, I can only guess that the trojan was missed until it was "awakened" and went into action? That's the nature of a trojan. And not that it might be your case, but sometimes we might be the ones to catch something new, and have to wait for an AV update. No AV program is perfect. A hacker gets his "ego", such as it is, stroked by getting past Norton or McAfee, etc.
Thanks JoJo Gunn - point well taken.
To be clear, my intention was not a slamming as much as I have newbie lurkers in mind...
There's lots to know about [ln]security issues amd re newbies, and I wouldn't want any of'm to get disouraged by thinking it's not worth learning becasue it won't help anyhow.
All thast being said, exams do seem to be kinda taking their toll over here - I'll work at loosening the strings. ;)
Oh, but I just have to hilite a few quotes, JoJo Gunn :D
Nobody's gonna convince me that it was an "oversight" that a Microsoft program with the ability to update wasn't connected to the master switch, so to speak. ...
Just what is so important that a word processor/spreadsheet has to phone home for? And there's no explanation of just what was updated.
The reason we don't have as much privacy nowadays is because we don't demand it. Those who remain silent get everything they "ask" for.
...
I'll never understand why that list of months old sites HAS to be protected, and a program like Spider has to be created to get rid of it, unless it's important to someone outside of my machine.
...
Certainly that's not ethical, so why after all these years are those places still around?
...
For those of us who care about all this stuff, it's a war over principles. Who we're up against is nothing more than intruders in our homes. What else can you call them? They don't share any of the money they make off of us.
...
Of course that means someone has to physically take apart your machine. Hopefully we can at least hinder the thugs who try to enter through the modem.
DANG! Old JoJo rates a few quotes, how about that? :D
As far as the strings being tight, yep. I admit to it myself lately, and it's been going around. Must be something in the water.
Concerning getting discouraged, I hope they don't get that way either. But what spooks me most of all is how they're being born in a world of apathy, and they'll grow to accept anything, and like it. So many people don't realize the absolute earth shaking power they have just by saying no, and keeping their wallet in their pocket. :confused:
It's not the case of 'not bothering', its more to do with what Jojo has said on my behalf. Like most I do like to protect my privacy and have Norton Security and NAV installed, with regular updates. Despite this, I had an unwelcomed / unfriendly resident on my PC despite implementing these safeguards. I was just making the point that we should not become complacent (as I had) and be fool into thinking that all is well when it clearly is not.Quote:
Originally posted by ^dAvEy^
please excuse my sarcasm being used to make this point:
You mean why bother? So there's no reason to implement futile illusionary preventative measures becasue anyone and everyone looking to access and/or malign all content on, and stable functioning of the computer knows how to bypass all means to maximize security? Such means can't even make it more difficult for them? Man, that's discouraging and depressing! I give up! I feel like an idiot for wasting my time. :eek: :rolleyes: :eek:
Regarding the virus that I had, It's only an assumption on my behalf that it was responsible for sending out emails, after all, it could be something else on my machine that I am unaware of, how can we really be sure??
Dave