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It looks like Forecastfox has been sold to spyware vendors as their latest update changes its permissions to "allowed to read and change data on all websites you visit" which for an app that is simply supposed to display data from Accuweather? yeah its been sold to malware vendors.

Someone I have been speaking with online sent me a link which might help some folks stop some of the spying and as you can see here there is a ton of work required to turn all the spyware off, frankly it looks like more work just trying to disinfect the thing that it would be to go back to a non infected version of Windows.

If you have installed the new AMD Crimson driver be sure to check your overdrive setting as some users are reporting cooked cards because a bug in overdrive locks the fan speed at 20%. While this bug didn't affect me I went ahead and went back to 15.71 simply because the fix is only out in the form of a beta driver and I don't mess with betas, but if you have an AMD card running Crimson its something you should check.

I've just installed Windows 10 on an i3 laptop and am looking for suggestions on how to do an in depth traffic analysis of Windows 10 after the "stop spying" program has been used to see if its possible to "de-fang" Windows 10. The requirements will be 1.- It has to be software based as I no longer have any hardware firewalls capable of logging IP addresses, 2.- If its Linux based I'm gonna need a link to a how-to as I've never used Linux for networking, only web servers, and 3.- If it works off a stick or live CD so much the better, I really don't want to have to reinstall the OS on the test box afterwards.

Anyway I figure I'll disable the wireless and run the ethernet into a second box with 2 ethernet ports as a pass-through to do the logging. I figure it will have some sort of net connection test so merely plugging into another box won't work, but by using the second box as a bridge we should be able to capture exactly what is going out and see if its truly possible to kill Win 10 spying. The pass through box is a Phenom I quad with 4GB of RAM so it should have no issues running whatever we need to run, and all results will be published here.

  So other than Wireshark any suggestions?

So one of the ACs on the other site decided to do a WHOIS on the addresses the Czech traffic analysis I linked to posted and what did he find? he find the telemetry data goes to MarkMonitor the anti piracy group. If this data proves factual we now know who the REAL customer of Windows 10 is, its the *.A.A who are gonna be able to find out every single song played and video watched by windows 10 users.

I don't know about the rest of you guys but I've seen enough to tell my customers Windows 10 is toxic and to be avoided.

Sigh, with it becoming harder and harder to find decent single player games, as i am not part of the "dudebro" demographic and therefor do not care for your "Medal Of Dooky: Halo Of Killzone Gears Edition" style of games I decided to jump in and try one that looked the least "dude bro"ish and that game is....War Thunder.

I have to give the designers of the game credit, as nearly ever other "FTP" game I've ever played is either so grindtastic its insane or so badly pay to win its not funny but at least in these early tier 1 games? Its really not, hell you can take the default tank (that you get free repairs on forever so you can be as nutty as you like with it, nice) and actually start getting kills in the first few minutes of the first game, its really all about keeping your head on a swivel and remembering to watch your reload times. Nothing will give you a smile quicker than somebody coming to strafe the tank formation you are in and you blow its wing off with the 20mm of your Panzer II lol.

So if any of you are getting sick of the usual fare and want something a little different? Do NOT be put off by the fact its planes and tanks (and soon to be ships) as its beyond easy to drive with a standard keyboard and mouse. If you can play an FPS? You can play War Thunder. Maybe if a few guys here give it a spin and like it we can get a team together, having :"Team Soybeans" roll the tanks while "Run To The Hills" by Iron Maiden plays? That would be a blast.

A journal by NCommander the other day got me thinking (I know, dangerous but I was bored) and what we need here is a Gamer's Corner for fellow Soybeans users to post what games they are playing, build teams, trade in game items, etc. I think this would help build unity and community while at the same time helping the users hook up and do better in their games.

Anyway until one of the admins gives us a true gamer's corner section I figured we could use this post as a starting point so feel free to post what games you are playing you'd like to have others join, in game gear you'd be happy to give away/swap, basically anything to do with games and gaming feel free to post it here.

Allow me to get the ball rolling with a little gift for the fellow Soybeaners...if you recently picked up Borderlands II GOTY off the Steam sale and haven't maxed your character yet? I have plenty of orange items from the great loot hunt last year, lvl 50-70 and I'll be happy to work out times to hook up in game and dole out the loot. Drops will be limited depending on how many folks respond and will go on until the loot is gone, I don't have enough of each weapon to take requests for specific guns but feel free to ask and if I have it its yours, also have some sweet blue and purple weapons like the Morningstar sniper rifle I'll be happy to drop and if you prefer a particular type of weapon, like say shotgun or rifle I'll be happy to look and see what I have.

Here at the shop I get to use and try more gear than most and one thing I've noticed is that AMD driver 14.4 is to be AVOIDED at all costs! they have already issued one fix so far but even the "fixed" driver just doesn't work. I use a lot of the HD77xx series cards (liked them so much myself and my family are all on HD77xx) and the new drivers are just terrible on those cards, it makes boot slow to a crawl, many formats of video just don't play, even seeing BSODs when playing some H.26x formatted vids.

If I had to guess its the new HSA or Mantle causing the teething problems but until they figure out the cause its best to stick with 13.12 which is rock solid.

For those that haven't tried it lately Comodo Internet Security has added a bit of brilliance...a virtual machine desktop! With this even your most clueless users/friends/relatives can have the added security of surfing in a VM without having to know squat about OSes and VMs, here is how...

1.- Give them the free Comodo IS, 2.- If they don't have it install MSFT Silverlight (no worries about zero days and the like though, because the VM runs in a locked down sandbox), 3.- Show them where the big button is that says "virtual desktop". For the most clueless Comodo comes with a widget on the desktop with most functions including virtual desktop. 4.- There is no step 4, let your user enjoy a virtual desktop loaded with Google apps and Comodo Dragon for surfing while you enjoy not having to worry about infections on their system. Hell it even comes with Angry Birds to give 'em a reason to start using it!

For years we've known that using a VM locked down and separate from the OS was a good thing but its just been too complicated for Joe and Jane, well Comodo hs that problem licked, I have handed it to some of my most clueless and virus prone customers and so far? Clean as a whistle. Its easy, increases security by a large amount, and its free...what's not to like?