![](Blog/BROWSER%20WARS/browser%20wars.png)
And other
complications
I lent a visitor my
laptop recently and was assailed with
"What's this for
?" questions all day ... so, by way of an answer ...
I used to use Comodo
Dragon browser. It was really fast - It came bundled
with firewall
and anti-virus and
they all worked together well. Just lately, though, it
stopped playing some
media files - audio
especially - embedded bandcamp files etc just didn't
work. So Installed DuckDuckGo.
Excellent - no more
youtube ads, no more cookie nags on websites ... 'cept
it has its quirks, too. It's maybe a little
too security based -
won't always allow you to open independent sites and
some sites don't like it.
Not overly keen on it
directly opening the websites pages you previously
visited when you type in the search engine box -
instead of giving you
a list of search results. I now use both browsers.
Roughly speaking - DDG
for online, Comodo for offline/web building etc.
Firefox ? - way too
chummy with Google.
Edge ? - it's
microsoft, so plain evil.
I just keep them, and
Comodo Icedragon, for testing, but that's about it.
Anyone who has got
themselves a Windows computer or laptop in the last few
years
will know how
atrocious the bloatware situation is. For those of us
who don't do social media
it feels like a slap
in the face to have all this digital land-fill emptied
into our computers.
Win 10 and 11 has a
lot of this garbage 'hard coded' into the OS. Here are
some tools I use to get round the problem :
O
+O SHUTUP
Excellent piece of
software that will let you to stop/disable unwanted
Windows feature and
apps. Systematic checklist of useless progs and spyware
(There's a lot !)
- run each time you
do a windows update
WINAERO
TWEAKER
Interesting program
that helps you clear out unwanted stuff and modify
your windows setup to
your liking. Comes with a pc repair prog,
which I haven't tried
yet. Has interesting online tips, too.
WIN
11 DEBLOATER
A collection of
scripts to run and get rid of a lot of the nastiness
(works with windows
10, too)
UNINSTALL
THE 'MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL'
This
particularly evil bit of software is often included in
Windows updates.
It
will stop you running cracked software and will drain
system resources
AS EVER - CREATE A
BACKUP IN WINDOWS RESTORE
BEFORE RUNNING ANY
OF THE PROGRAMS ABOVE - JUST IN CASE
ADVANCED
SYSTEM CARE - FREE
Handy
for cleaning out cookies etc at the end of a day
Keeps
the registry healthy, so you don't have to re-install
Windows every couple of years
IOBIT
UNINSTALLER
Useful for those progs
that won't uninstall properly -
cleans all traces from
the registry
THUNDERBIRD
Email client ...
Microsoft has just
stopped outlook from communicating with independently
developed
programs like this, so
I'm forwarding emails until I can delete old
hotmail addresses
TIXATI
Fave torrent
downloader
DAUM
POTPLAYER
Alternative media
player
LIBRE
OPEN OFFICE
Non-microsoft text and
spreadsheet program
INTERNETOFF
Internet Kill-Switch
PRIVOXY
Freeware proxy client
FASTSTONE
IMAGE VIEWER
Picture editor/viewer
and image converter
I'm sure there's more
I could have added to this list.
It's a shame you can't
just have an operating system without
spending time
decorporatizing your machine, but these programs will
help
Check out a certain
Swedish website for everything else
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