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I use PIA on my PC and my wife uses the VPN that come with Norton. However, on my iPhone I use Encrypt.me (formerly Cloak). When I started using this years ago, its UI was much better than several others I tried on the iPhone. I like the ease of changing servers, as I travel a lot. Its France server has been much more reliable (fewer timeouts) than PIA, for example.

I haven’t seen any reviews or comments, positive or negative, about Encrypt.me.  It costs $13/month. Anyone out there have any thoughts on this?

I tried one of those download sites and got something that wouldn’t install. Then I just went to Microsoft store and paid $150 for Office 2019 Home and Student. It lacks Outlook, but I would never use that anyway. I think the program now costs $125 in this version on Amazon. Totally legit.

I use Thunderbird as an email client but will check if it is IMAP or POP3.

If you have been using POP3 with Thunderbird, all your emails since you started will be preserved on your computer until you erase them. If IMAP and you haven’t been archiving the emails locally, depending on your settings all you may currently have is what is currently on the server. You should immediately archive all of those emails locally.

I have gone through email changes a couple of times (ISP out of business, moved to a location where the ISP had no internet service, etc.). In the end, I opted for my own domain. That way I keep my email address forever.

There are many hosting companies who charge little per month and will get you a free or nominal cost domain registration. You’ll still pay an ISP for your connection, but not use them for email.

Avoid long term contracts. That way, you can always switch to a different host company if you are unsatisfied. Most hosting companies will do the transfer of email databases and any websites you created for free.

Just for an example, I looked up the domain http://www.mike21.com on the giant host company godaddy.com. It isn’t available. But http://www.mike21.net is. The first year of this domain, including website and email, would cost around 15 euros for one year in France (where I am).

With any potential host, read all the fine print, particularly about refunds if unsatisfied and how much charges can go up in the second year.

There is another question about the Windows 10 issue not yet mentioned. If you have a Windows 7 machine that is still under warranty but your manufacturer doesn’t offer support or drivers for Windows 10, will the Windows 10 update (assuming it works) affect the warranty?

I have a Panasonic SX2 laptop purchased in January 2015. It was a current model and is still being sold at full retail price. It came with Windows 7 and the vendors all show the “free Windows 10 update” logo. Nonetheless, Panasonic has stated that it has no intention of providing new drivers.

One person on a notebook forum with an older, also not supported Panasonic laptop, said he had to uninstall and update “Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework driver.” I haven’t a clue about what this is or entails.

Now for the good news. I suspect that not many people ever even connect to the Xfinity SSID. It requires that you be a Comcast subscriber and you must login with your Comcast user ID and password. I don’t see how that would be useful to most people in a typical neighborhood. If I’m at home, already using the 50 Mbps Comcast connection that I pay for, then why would I need to use the Xfinity SSID? I suppose it might be useful for someone that needs to travel with a laptop. Real estate agents could make use of it to keep their mobile data costs reasonable, perhaps logging in to their laptops to look up a property while sitting in a Comcast-served neighborhood (if they also are a Comcast subscriber). Maybe if you live near a park where people hang out with their laptops, then it would be nice for them to use. Otherwise, it just seems like a marketing gimmick. 😉

I agree that usage will be limited. If someone is checking their email, virtually nothing. Even that hypothetical real estate agent would be brief and probably unlikely. They need reliable data connections for their work. They can’t chance relying on finding an xfinity shared hotspot.

This is a very common system in Europe, though typically used in a different way. The public wifi channel is meant for cell phone users, not computers. It’s for those of us with no data plans or limited data. It dramatically increases the number of locations where we can get wifi.

In France my cell phone provider is Free.fr. I pay $2.20/month (no typo) for 120 minutes of local and international outgoing calls. (Extra minutes are very cheap.) Receiving calls or accessing voice mail doesn’t use minutes. I also get a token amount of data.

I also get free wifi access to the public channel of all Free.fr internet routers throughout France. The SIM card from Free.fr makes the connection encrypted (like a VPN) and does the login. I can’t imagine I make a noticeable blip in the usage of any one shared router. I don’t stream movies on my phone, or at least not standing out in front of someone’s home or apartment building where I might be checking my email or a map.

It sounds like xfinity’s system would work similarly but it’s tied to your internet provider (xfinity) and not to your cell phone provider. Since I’m not in an xfinity-served area, I couldn’t use it.

I should add that the European systems only work with cell phones that have compatible circuitry and software. All iphones do. Android phones typically have the circuitry but the Android operating system hadn’t implemented EAP-SIM (Extensible Authentication Protocol) last time I checked.

I found the task schedule created when I installed PIAmanager.exe. It was running from my admin account because I was logged in that way when I installed the program. Highest privileges was checked.

I changed the task to run by the System account, and to run with logon of any user. I then restarted the laptop. Nothing happened I could see. If the program had run correctly, I would have an task bar icon showing the VPN was active.

This is consistent with what bbearen wrote. Task Scheduler runs but no error and the desired action does not happen. Here is the event log for a 4pm logon:
39415-taskPIA

Ok, I am back now with maybe a little time to try some of this out. First, however, one comment and one new, bizarre problem unrelated to the thread.

The comment: “Run as administrator” = run from an account with admin privileges. This is not the same as “Run as Administrator” where “Administrator” is the hidden, disabled-by-default super admin account.

The bizarre new problem: I cannot do a Print Preview of this thread in Firefox. It just hangs. If I try to print to Adobe PDF (I have Acrobat Pro), it also hangs. If i do a Print Preview in IE, it shows 69 pages, each one with the text getting narrower and narrower.

Riffraff, the Administrator account is either “enabled” or “disabled”. This is clear from the folks elsewhere who want to hide it without disabling it, but cannot.

However, yours is still an interesting idea. It may be possible to set up the task scheduler as suggested by RG while the Administrator account is enabled, then disable the account but the task still runs. I don’t know, but I will try it when I get some time.

Thanks.

Let’s make this specific. Say these are the account names on my system:
1. RandyUser – my main account with user rights
2. RandyAdmin – my account with admin rights
3. Administrator – the built in but hidden account with super admin rights

Say I am logged in as RandyUser user. I set up the task and get to “When running the task, use the following user account:” Here I can’t enter RandyAdmin as the account name. It says the name can’t be found when I do “check name”.

What can be found is the account “Administrator”, i.e., the hidden Adminstrator account. It asks for a pw, which I don’t know because the account has not been activated and I have not assigned any pw to it.

If instead I log on as RandyAdmin, I am back where I started. I can create a task, check all the right boxes, but there will still be a prompt for an admin pw to run Rubyw.exe when next I logon as RandyUser.

I really appreciate your trying to help. I now just don’t think there is any solution that doesn’t require either always logging on with admin rights (here as RandyAdmin) or activating the hidden Administrator account.

It isn’t a terrible problem, just an annoyance.

Major oddity/clue:

I tried a couple of variations of setting up a new task when logged on as an admin. I can get PIAmanager.exe to start up automatically when the admin logs on, but still get prompt for an admin password when I am logging in as a user.

Now, I did just discover something odd. I had not noticed that the prompt for an admin pw referred not to PIAmanager.exe, but rather to Rubyw.exe. In the prompt, it is located in a temp subfolder of my usernameappdatalocal folder.

After some tests, I found that a new temp folder is created with Rubyw.exe in it when I run PIAmanager.exe. It is Rubyw.exe that needs admin permission, not PIAmanager.exe.

I don’t know how to get around this, since Rubyw.exe is created each time PIAmanager is run, or at least the first time PIAmanager is run after a reboot.

Early on in my trials a year or two ago, I did try using the Task Scheduler. I think I set it up from an admin account, as a run on boot for all users. It didn’t work to avoid the need to manually enter a pw.

I more recently found the step-by-step instructions that seem to be what you are talking about. These are on howtogeek. The critical failure comes after creating the task. It says something like “right click on the new task and hit Run” to make sure the program starts up.

I was in a user account but ran the scheduler as an administrator to set up the task. When I clicked on Run, nothing happened. I did go through the step of setting up a shortcut to call the scheduled task. If I click on that, I get a DOS box flash too briefly to read, and nothing else happens.

I will try this one more time. I’ll log on as an admin and run through the steps. This is not indicated as necessary by the howtogeek article. In fact, the implication is just the opposite.

I have been using VPN for years because I travel a lot. I settled on PIA (Private Internet Access). It has servers in many countries and good Windows software. One subscription applies to multiple devices.

The problem I have is with my iPhone and iPad. Apple’s iOS doesn’t seem to like vpn, at least not PIA. There is no equivalent software for iOS to maintain the vpn connection, as there is for Windows and Android.

I have to manually start the vpn connection each time with iOS. Then it will rarely hold more than 5-10 minutes before disconnecting. Before you even notice that disconnect, your email client may have refreshed, sending your now unencrypted password and downloading unencrypted messages.

I have not found a solution to this problem.

Good comments, Joe. In theory, I assume if someone gets my hard drive they will at least be slowed down with all my data folders on my D: partition in EFS.

I guess the worry about the file list of password files is if someone breaks into Roboform’s servers. But as you say, with strong credentials on all my financial websites, maybe it’s not something to worry about.

I guess I am not ready to give up the convenience of having Roboform on my PC.

One of my backups is an Ironkey usb drive. I have not gotten Roboform Anywhere to work on it. However, the IK has a built-in Firefox browser, connection to VPN servers, and an autologon. It doesn’t work as well as Roboform on some website, but it does work. I think it is about as secure as I can hope for.

I started using Roboform last year, somewhat hesitantly, after first trying a freeware password mgr whose name I forget. I now use it all the time. I do have some issues/questions.

It seems that all PMs have problems with multipage logins. There are workarounds but they don’t always work. On some sites, or where a site has multiple ways of getting to log in, Roboform may think it’s got the page right but enter data in the wrong place. Then I have to find a login page that matches what R-f can handle.

Another issue I have specifically with R-f is that the individual pw files, while encrypted, have plain text names. Anyone who got a directory list of my hard drive would have a very complete list of every bank, stock broker, and website I visit. Roboform says this is not going to change. The only workaround is to name each password with something unintelligible, but then I have to remember that, say, MLZPK is Chase Bank and OpenDoors is really Windows Secrets.

I have the version of Roboform that I can sync to my iPhone. I haven’t tried it yet. For one thing, I am very skeptical of the security of anything on the iPhone. Beyond that, R-f does not allow simply copying the password files from a PC to the iPhone. It requires going through their servers. Until now, I have totally avoided putting any important data “in the cloud.” Too many stories of server breaches.

The saving grace of Roboform is that one does not send unencrypted files to R-f servers, not even over SSL. (Let’s not talk about Heartbleed.) The pw files are encrypted locally, saved that way on R-f servers, and downloaded to the iPhone in the original, encrypted form. In theory, even if some bad guys or some government had access to R-f’s servers, all they’d get is my encrypted pw files. On this basis, I am considering using this feature. On the other hand, they’d also get the complete list of all my banks, etc. (see above) This could be used in social engineering attacks.

It could also be a permissions issue. Here is a posting I made quite a long time ago:

I had the 0x80070057 error, too. I just got the SP1 update and still got the error. I thought it was an access issue but even using my default administrator account made no difference. This is the account that Windows 7 forces you to create upon installation or first use. The solution for me was to activate the hidden (also called “built-in”) Administrator account. Log on to that account and I could create both a repair CDROM and repair DVD. Go back to my default administrator account and I get the old error message. Note that switching users from your regular account to the Administrator acccount does not work. You must initially log on as Administrator. For information on activating the hidden Administrator account, see (among many sites) http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials…e-disable.html Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit, SP1

Most recently, I had the same problem due to an installation of Acronis backup software. I had long ago uninstalled it but the uninstall routine (even using Revo Uninstaller) left a registry parameter that prevented Windows backup and repair disk functions from working.

Fixing it was not very easy. The uninstall program from Acronis did not take care of it. It took a manual Registry change. Afterwards, all is working correctly. I have to run as an admin, but not using the hidden Administrator account described above. Best not to activate that account if you don’t need to.