John Durso – Daves Computer Tips

Public Wi-Fi Best Practices

John Durso — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 04:25:15 +0000

For those of us living in a hemisphere where Vegemite is NOT considered fine cuisine, summertime is approaching. That means surf, sun, travel, and time with family. It also means you may need to use public Wi-Fi. Public Wi-Fi is an open network often available at coffee shops, fast-food restaurants, libraries, hotels, and other locations. It is convenient, and when traveling, it may be the only…

Source

Browser Purple Links Are Gone! How To Fix

John Durso — Wed, 14 May 2025 07:22:51 +0000

After a recent update to my Brave browser, I noticed that visited links no longer appear visited (i.e., the link is not displayed in a different color, commonly referred to as “purple links”). I opened Chrome and it was present there, too. This makes sense since both Brave and Chrome are based on the Chromium web browser. This has something to do with a recent “fix” to the Chromium…

Source

Confirmed: Computerized Voting Machines Hacked

John Durso — Wed, 07 May 2025 04:07:21 +0000

On Thursday, April 10, in a televised cabinet meeting, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard confirmed that investigators uncovered evidence that electronic voting machines were tampered with to rig the results of past U.S. elections. The intel community has known that voting machines have been vulnerable for a long time. Gabbard said in the statement…

Source

Windows Update Adds New “inetpub” Folder

John Durso — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 04:01:40 +0000

The other day, I updated Windows, and now I have a new folder on my drive. The Windows April 2025 updates are creating an empty “inetpub” folder in the root directory of the C:\ drive. Traditionally, Windows would create the “inetpub” folder when the Internet Information Services (IIS) — a web server platform to host websites, web applications…

Source

Adding A VPN To A Home Network – Part 4

John Durso — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 04:27:22 +0000

In parts 1, 2 and 3 of this article, I explained what a VPN is, the reasons to put a VPN on a router, equipment concerns, how to add a VPN client to a router, what modifications to make to the default settings, how to how to create rules to get traffic to the VPN client, and how to manually assign an address to a device on the network. In this article, I will cover creating rules to bypass the VPN…

Source

Adding A VPN To A Home Network – Part 3

John Durso — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 04:01:47 +0000

In Parts 1 and 2 of this article, I explained what a VPN is, the reasons to put one on a router, equipment concerns, how to add a VPN client to a router, and what modifications to make to the default settings. In this part of the series, I will cover how to create rules to get traffic to the VPN client and how to manually assign an address to a device on the network.

Source

Adding A VPN To A Home Network – Part 2

John Durso — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 04:55:30 +0000

In Part 1 of this article, I explained what a VPN is, the reasons to put a VPN on a router, and equipment concerns. In this part of the article, I will cover how to add a VPN client to a router and what modifications to make to the default settings. To install a VPN client on your router, you will need a configuration file. Although there are many VPN tunneling protocols…

Source

Adding A VPN To A Home Network – Part 1

John Durso — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 04:02:15 +0000

I decided to turn my router into a VPN router by adding a VPN client to my home network. Note: A VPN Client is different than a VPN Server. A VPN Server allows a secure connection to the home network (for access to the home network when traveling, for example). See here for changes I made to my network and VPN Server when there were hacking attempts on my network. This is a four-part article.

Source

Firefox Removes Promise Not To Sell Personal Data

John Durso — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 04:02:12 +0000

Mozilla, the parent company of Firefox, just changed its Firefox FAQ. The old Firefox FAQ included a promise that Mozilla would never sell a user’s personal data. But Mozilla removed that promise in its new FAQ. If we go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine and enter the URL for the Firefox FAQ and select a January date, we can pull up an archived version of the Firefox FAQ.

Source

Is Android System SafetyCore Safe?

John Durso — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:43:51 +0000

In a recent security update, Google is loading a new application, Android System SafetyCore, to Android phones. The application has permissions to do almost anything on the device. Google has been secret about what this application really is. In a blog post, Google states that this new functionality, Sensitive Content Warnings, is to keep us safe from nudity by blurring the results and warning us…

Source

Microsoft Is Shutting Down Skype

John Durso — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 07:38:35 +0000

Microsoft is shutting down Skype in May 2025. The company announced this in an X statement. Microsoft says that Skype users can use their Skype log-in information on the Microsoft Teams’ free tier in the “coming days.” Alternatively, users can download their Skype data using the app’s built-in export tool. Skype launched in 2003 in Estonia as a way to make calls…

Source

Importance Of Two-Factor Authentication

John Durso — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 05:02:05 +0000

Today, I read an article in The Wall Street Journal about a Disney employee whose life was destroyed because he didn’t have two-factor authentication (2FA) turned on in his password manager. I thought, “What an idiot! He certainly was not a DCT reader! All DCT readers would have 2FA turned on for their password manager.” I then rethought this. Some DCT readers may not have 2FA turned on. Also…

Source

Top 8 Microsoft PowerToys – Update

John Durso — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 05:02:32 +0000

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities developed by Microsoft for use with the Windows operating system. These programs add or change features to improve productivity or add customization. Previously, I have written about Microsoft PowerToys with my Top 5 Microsoft PowerToys article. Later, I added to my top PowerToys list in my Top 6 Microsoft PowerToys – Update and Top 7 Microsoft PowerToys…

Source

StartAllBack VS Start11

John Durso — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 05:03:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, our own Jim Hillier wrote an article about how Stardock’s Start11 will soon support a vertical taskbar. Start11 is a Windows 11 Start menu replacement utility. It allows a user to personalize the Windows interface and restore functionality that Microsoft has removed. I find the default Windows 11 Start menu irritating and unusable. In my opinion, a replacement Start menu utility…

Source