Re: Unknown download activity in background - how to determine whatit is?
Re: Unknown download activity in background - how to determine whatit is?
Kayman wrote:
> "John John" <audetweld@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote in message
> It's a pc, apply your own logic (utilise sensible apps.); So take
> ownership, do some research, do not consult advertisement-driven
> publications and be responsible - *you* are in charge! If you don't like
> pc go for available alternatives.
Regardless of what you might think I am no slouch at computers and I
don't use Adware! Did you know that some of the new Sysinternal
(Microsoft) utilities call home without your knowledge? Did you know
that these Sysinternal utilities do not tell you that they call home and
that they provide no inbuilt mechanism to stop this behaviour? Do you
agree that those applications, amongst others, should be calling home
without the user's knowledge? Do you agree that users should have no
easy method to detect and stop these unwanted connections? By the
contents of your posts I would say obviously not! There are many other
legitimate applications that call home for no valid reasons, when you
install these application they don't always tell you that they will be
calling home and they don't always make it easy to find that out or to
disable "call home" features. I am sure you didn't know of the
Sysinternal utilities calling home and I am sure that you are not in
charge of your computer as much as you thing that you are! But then you
don't think that users should have a way of being made aware or of
stopping those outbound connections so who cares about "being in charge"
of their computers?
> M/S firewall *can't* do (but they could) because it's recognised to be
> waste of resources and time. And yes, PFW's are IMO of no value
> whatsoever; I know because I operate without these apps.
> John John, don't get blinded by all the marketing hype 
Marketing hype? It appears that you are the one blinded by marketing
hype! Microsoft marketing hype! The misinformation published in one of
the Microsoft articles provided by another poster makes it clear that
Microsoft and its shills are on a mission to discredit all firewalls
that monitor outbound connections and to insist that the Microsoft
firewall is somehow or other superior to all others. Quite amusing when
it's coming from an outfit that until a few years ago didn't even know
what a firewall was! As for your comments of "waste of resources" it is
laughable to say the least. It this day and age of fast processors and
large amounts of RAM this is a non issue. Also, the firewall will be
using resources just to do its basic job of keeping intruder out, the
little extra needed to monitor outbound connections is negligible.
Lets get one thing perfectly clear here, I am not claiming, nor have I
ever claimed that outbound connection monitoring was an effective method
of dealing with all sorts of malware. I am simply saying that outbound
monitoring is a useful tool that can alert you to some not so clever
malware trying to call home and that it can alert you that something
like your printer software, or Microsoft components might be trying to
access the internet for no good reason at all. But then it appears that
you think that users shouldn't know that these things are calling home.
Neither you, nor Microsoft, nor anyone else will ever convince me that
outbound connection monitoring is not a useful feature. Period!
John