Replies

Also keep in mind that lots of applications which use microphone will have an “automatic gain” or “automatically adjust sensitivity” option turned on by default.

The manual shows that for the different Intel sockets, it uses a different position for the screws that secure its mounting bracket.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Berserker79

In this situation, I would manually back up the bookmarks files, uninstall Chrome and delete any left behind user data, then reinstall and restore the bookmarks files into the fresh profile. I prefer something like this to a fix of the existing install/profile, because I’d never trust that there wasn’t still something corrupted even if I got it working again.

Make sure you’ve got all your passwords to web sites, as a fresh profile certainly won’t have any saved logins.

The files should be found in:

%localappdata%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

The file named Bookmarks will be the current ones, while Bookmarks.bak may contain previously deleted ones.

My guess would be that is about obtaining a newer version. In Mint 20.3, I see the Software Manager offers Wine version 5. Adding the official repository from the Wine website will let you get the latest stable branch (version 7). Though I noticed that version is also available via Flatpak.

This generally means that the domain your email claims to come from is not really where it comes from. Example:

• Imagine my email provider is “Sender”, with a domain of sender.com.
• In my email From field, I have the email address me@sendr.com (missing the second ‘e’).
• I send an email to a Gmail address.
• Gmail checks the DNS configuration of sender.com (where the message is really from) to see if sendr.com (where it claims to come from) is authorized, and finds that it isn’t.
• Gmail blocks the message.

So either your From address is somehow wrong, or your email provider needs to update their DNS configuration. The former you may be able to fix yourself, but the latter is up to the IT team of your email provider.

Wow, missed that! So, by the OP’s description, Dell Support Assist offered an incompatible driver. They do weird things.

Meanwhile, the vanilla 516.94 says it is compatible with the GTX 1080.

Dell does weird things. My experience is with a notebook I manage for a family member. It has NVIDIA graphics as well as Intel, but the installer that NVIDIA’s site offers for it refuses to run – saying it isn’t compatible. So that notebook is forever stuck with older NVIDIA drivers from Dell’s site.

For the XPS 8930 with a GTX 1080, I see Dell isn’t too far behind – version 516.94. If that is borked, you can wait for the next update from Dell or try again to use the newest directly from NVIDIA (now  527.37). Since you’re dealing with a desktop, if your GTX 1080 is built by Dell you may or may not experience what I did. But if it is built by another company, there should be no problem installing the drivers from NVIDIA’s site, and I would also recommend it.

Private browsing does not save local data – pages, media, and (importantly) cookies from sites are not kept on the device when the private session ends. This can, to some small extent, combat some forms of tracking. For example, if in a subsequent session you return to a site that uses cookies for tracking, it doesn’t get those from your previous session since they’re no longer present.

But so much tracking does not depend on locally-stored browsing data, and private browsing on its own can’t do anything about that. As Alex mentioned above, if for example you used Google to perform your search, they store information about you on their end – what you searched for, what type of device you’re using and its OS, your browser, your location based on your IP and/or GPS, and more – to tie that search to you.

So, some use tools like additional privacy settings in browsers, add-ons, search engines, and VPNs that promise to combat tracking. Meanwhile, the companies trying to track you are using their vast resources to design new technologies to defeat those, which in turn forces the creation of ever more complex tools.

Since I know that I could spend every waking moment trying to protect my privacy and still not succeed entirely (or even to a high degree I’d be content with), I only invest so much effort. For myself, I use DuckDuckGo for search and run Firefox with ETP on Strict mode all the time, with NoScript allowing only what is necessary for the functions of sites I use regularly. If I can’t get a site to work without allowing tracking, I question whether or not I need to use that site at all and decide on a case by case basis. For family and friends who inquire I recommend the same except for NoScript, since most don’t want to learn to manage it.

6 users thanked author for this post.

AlphaCharlie, Charlie, Alex5723, SueW, WCHS, NaNoNyMouse

I use the settings of the browsers themselves to keep only cookies and cache for some sites, while everything else is deleted on browser exit. That’s zero clicks.

Custom file deletion I handle with a simple batch file – just a few del commands to clear out specific folders. That’s a double-click to run it manually, or no clicks by using Task Scheduler to run it regularly. I also have a pause at the end so that I get a chance to read the output before I tap one key to close the command prompt window.

This is what I have been doing since I stopped using CCleaner, which was because of Avast.

1 user thanked author for this post.

rick41

I gave it a shot and entered one of my email aliases, since I can always delete it and create a new one. It said to check my inbox for a verification code, but it’s been over 24 hours and no email from them ever arrived.

Maybe they didn’t have that email, and now they do. 😉

If USB drives remain fully powered and continue to spin indefinitely, I wonder if the system is actually shutting down. So I would try disabling Windows features like Hibernate and Fast Startup, if they aren’t already.

If the PC really is fully shutting down while the USB drives continue to be powered, the next thing I’d do is look for USB settings in the BIOS that might be the culprit. I’ve seen motherboards that can keep some USB ports powered even while shut down so you can use them to charge devices. To see if that is the cas for your board, I tried to find a full manual that details all BIOS options but apparently MSI didn’t bother to make one.

Cliff tryon wrote:

convert my CDs to Black

I suspect we’re looking at a post written with speech-to-text, and that this may be about FLAC.

As far as I know, before Windows 10, the built-in Windows Media Player could not play FLAC files without installing a codec. In Windows 10 it can, but some find it to be less than ideal and often use other media players.

An OEM car stereo / infotainment unit that can play FLAC would be quite rare – I’m not sure if they exist at all. There are aftermarket units that can, but it’s generally easier to find out what formats your unit supports (in its manual, or the car manual) and convert/rip to one of those.

I haven’t seen anything about Windows 11 that would motivate me to “upgrade”. Windows 10 extended support ends in October 2025. Barring an early end to driver updates for my hardware, that’s when I’ll look into moving on – if I still need Windows at all.

2 users thanked author for this post.

BobbyB, JohnH

Susan Bradley wrote:

I don’t find that Firefox has the same group policy ability.

Maybe not the same, but it has at least some.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-group-policy-windows

My organization uses it only to disable Firefox’s own automatic updates, because they deploy those with Intune. They do the same with Chrome (which 99% of people use), but oddly enough leave Edge alone.

1 user thanked author for this post.

oldfry

Be careful about the number of SATA ports. Often a board that offers more than other models with the same chipset comes with a compromise. In the case of ASRock’s PRO4, you have to choose between having the use of the 2 extra SATAs or the second M.2 slot – you cannot use both at the same time. There are only so many PCIe lanes to work with.

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B550M%20Pro4/index.asp#Specification