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My “life insurance” is current drive/partition images stored offline. No malware can reach that far. Ransomware has never even entered my “threat envelope”.

There are no faultless strategies and any good strategy must be multi-layer. My images are all offline, I just turn my drives on when I backup. That doesn’t mean that I don’t mind about how good are any of the layers before that one.

Each layer down will probably mean more effort to recover and potentially more loss of “transient” files. I pay around $40 / year for Malwarebytes Pro and EAM. If I have to spend an hour restoring from an image, those $40 will already have been justified. Until they, they pay just for a little more peace of mind.

I understand my choices are just that, my choices. This posts just tries explain the rational for making them and for not using Defender.

There is another thread where people weigh in on what antivirus they are using and several experienced people mention using Windows Defender as their primary. That surprises me, because most reviews I’m seeing put it about 5 out of 10.

I definitely do NOT want to turn this into another “what’s the best AV software” discussion – the other thread is already at about 5 pages. I just want to know who is using Defender rather than one of the various free programs available and why. IOW, how good is it?

When the first “popular” piece of ransomware showed, it caused quite a stir and it did so even among the regulars here. If I remember well, most AV stuff couldn’t detect it and neither could Malwarebytes – obviously Defender couldn’t either. At the time, I used Online Armor and Emsisoft Antimalware – both could prevent that first piece of ransomware, albeit Emsisoft likely just warned you and allowed you to make a decision.

I felt protected back then and that is what my goal is with AV software – as much as possible, use a set of products that ensure protection even against “unknown” threats. That’s why I won’t use Defender on any computers I regularly will work with. Defender is useless against everything but the oldest and most well known threats. I have absolutely no trust in it. Why bother would a product that even its maker will admit to it being nothing but basic?

AV, for me, is like life insurance – you don’t want it to get used, but it if it does need to be used, it is better if it is something that can be as good as it gets.

Mind you, achieving that is not easy. Since that first ransomware, Online Armor was retired as an effective product, which shows, in my opinion, how ridiculous the security software scene has become. That’s why I also do not recommend Emsisoft AntiMalware – I cannot recommend anything that comes from a company that took such a stupid decision as killing an excellent HIPS as Online Armor. That said, their AV offer is a good one and I use it with Malwarebytes Pro. I am sure I am not as well protected as I was before with Online Armor, but it still is way better than using Defender or other similarly average AV product.

This happens even when my habits are rather safe – I don’t really remember ever getting infected with something. I also backup regularly, keep two different disks and online copies of my most relevant files, etc. Even with all that, I see the security software I run is an important line of defense – if it is ever needed I want it to be effective, even against uncommon threats and even before they get added to the usual list of baddies AVs like Defender use.

I also don’t see the point of using the non Pro version of Malwarebytes. By the time it finds something, the cat will be already out of the bag and any harm that was supposed to be done, will have been done. Preventing infection is the main goal, in my opinion and that’s what I want for my security strategy. How good is Defender for that? I think anyone, even those who use it, can answer that.

My advice would be to have more than one product, hopefully both best of breed. I would recommend Malwarebytes Pro and something else. For the something else, get a reputed thing, that fares well on tests, and that is not wholly reliant on blacklists.

I went with Emsisoft Antimalware a few years ago. That’s a personal choice and shouldn’t be seen as a recommendation :).

+1 Macrium Reflect

This is very incomplete, very misleading:
I used to +1 Acronis True Image, not anymore, I have “retired” from their license policy of every year — either update, or, the license for that year expires when the year ends.
I completely take back the above comment!
I was very wrong, ruirib in his later post was right!

What I should have posted:
ATI licenses live forever! However, I am puzzled about my experience: I purchased ATI 2014, 2015, 2016 & got 2017 beta for testing. After 2017 beta testing was over, Acronis emailed us beta testers, indicated: purchase 2017 because 2017 beta license will expire. I tried to rollback to my previous 2016, no go; tried to rollback to my previous 2015, no go.
I do not know how to get my 2015 or 2016 back.

I suggest you start a new thread about your issue. I would offer some advice, not sure if it will work, but best done in its own thread.

As Joe states, usually you can do without router specific software. All routers have a web based interface and it’s not hard to get to it and configure the router from there. So, about the need for the software in the new laptop, I would say definitely no.

I would, alternatively, invest in controlling the router from the web interface, get the manual if you need to – it should have the default admin password. I do hope the software allowed you to change the admin password and now is a good time to do it, from the web interface, if you haven’t yet.

+1 Macrium Reflect; I used to +1 Acronis True Image, not anymore, I have “retired” from their license policy of every year — either update, or, the license for that year expires when the year ends.

Acronis licenses do not expire. I have used an Acronis 11 (I don’t remember for how many years, but likely 5 to 7) license until this year. Yes, the license is good only for the version you bought, but that happens with most software, new versions must be paid for.

So, the license for that version is good for whatever time you wish. Saying they expire is wrong and misleading.

I couldn’t care less about Acronis’ bottom line, but there is no need to offer incorrect information.

I’m still using Acronis. I am not aware of Windows 10 built in image functionality being better than the tools present in the previous Windows versions.

OneDrive sharing links are completely anonymous. They are anonymous in terms of not showing any owner related information and, when opened, the URL or the resulting webpage are completely anonymous, as well.

Of course, if you email the link, your email address will be shown.

Malwarebytes Pro + Emsisoft Antimalware.

Using a single product is just too risky, IMO. Using different products, including products that are not blacklist based, is a good way to minimize the changes of getting infected.

That’s interesting. I use a local account and I am logged in to OneDrive automatically when I sign in with my local account (which is how I set it up). However, it doesn’t show up as an App, it shows up as an Application in “C:UsersbbearrenAppDataLocalMicrosoftOneDriveOneDrive.exe”.

On my NAS, I don’t usually sign in; it’s in a signed-out state, but I setup OneDrive on my NAS using the same credentials I use on my desktop. That way my local OneDrive folder on my desktop stays updated with my online OneDrive folder and also updated with my local OneDrive folder on my NAS, and I can access it with my Windows phone. Robocopy on a Scheduled Task makes the first sync of My Documents to my local OneDrive folder located on a separate hard drive, and OneDrive does the rest.

Yes, your experience basically confirms that you can setup OneDrive access from Windows independently of the account used (local or MS). That’s how it should be, IMO, nothing automatic and allowing the user to configure it as preferred.

AFAIK, the main difference is, any MS software that needs/wants to connect to the cloud can do so without you having to provide a separate login.

Hmmm… not quite. I use a MS account and I am not logged in to OneDrive( which is exactly what I want, I don’t use the OneDrive app).

Don’t forget that it was Woody who gave us Windows Secrets Forums (originally known as Woody’s Lounge).

Don’t forget that this is the Microsoft that gave us XP :)…

Sorry, Jim, couldn’t help it :). Yes, I am just trolling, I will take a quick exit now :).

Update on battery life:

I’m working this week, so the phone is getting lots of use. I retrieve spreadsheets and data sheets and pdf files though-out the day. Last night it was still showing 47% when I put it on the charger. Right now (been off the charger over 12 hours) it’s showing 56%.

It seems it might be a bit better than it was previously.

I confirm that, with the added emphasis that mine is much better. An amazing improvement, it has gone back to what I was used to with Windows Phone 8.1 – ooops, maybe that shouldn’t sound that much as an improvement :).

Sorry Rui, I was still sort of thinking out loud. I’ll tell you what got me thinking about this.

I got a Surface Pro 3 (SP3) in July 2015 and upgraded it immediately to Win10. Over the next couple months I experimented with a number of things and changed a lot of settings. Sometimes for what I though were very good reasons and a few because I could. The upshot is that after several months, I decided to start all over and did a complete reset.

I thought I had learned a lot about Win10 in the process but I hadn’t learned enough. One thing I hadn’t learned is that Win10 can be very fussy about how some things are setup and where certain things are. This became apparent in a few ways but I’m now seeing a number of signs that my SP3 needs a serious enema. So there’s a really good chance I will do another reset soon.

If/when I do this, I will again be faced with the issue of using a local or MS login. I can still see no advantage to me in using a MS login and remain leery of this approach. On the other hand, we have seen repeatedly over the last year that MS is going to force people into doing things their way. The AU caught a lot of people off guard when it removed some GPEDIT settings. So I’m going to make changes with a lot more care this time around (famous last words).

Not a problem, Graham.

I agree, these changes in behavior are very hard to accept. You expect a company to meet your legitimate expectations and taking things away really doesn’t inspire trust. They do have a perennial tendency to shoot themselves in the foot.

One final question (I hope):

Assume my daughter has lots of Word and Excel 2007 files that have been migrated over by PCmover.

If she were to “rent” Office 365, would there be downward and upward compatibility between her 2007 files and the Office 365 format?

As always, thank you.

Dick

I don’t think there have been any format changes in Office files between 2007 and 2016.