Microsoft Dirty Tricks? 'Security Update' plugs up Internet - Solution Get Vista

I personally am witness to some strange happenings on my computer - namely my Mozilla Firefox was VERY SLOW, AND HANGING OFTEN. Its not that my computer is fast, its VERY FAST with 4GB of Ram, a Quad Core Phenon 9600 Processor, ad infinitum.

Strangely and magically when I unstalled the latest security patches from 'Microzoft' all of a sudden the machine speed up incredibly - and my Mozilla is working well again... Lets get realistic here - Windows XP has been out for several years now, and they are still releasing 'patches' for it. Strangely I also noticed that my Mozilla Firefox would hang, but my Internet Explorer would still work. I would physically throw the computer into the garbage before I would use Internet Explorer - PERIOD.

Vista is a crime against humanity all you need to read is found at www.badvista.org... and now I am wondering if they are 'encouraging' transition over to Vista by 'crippling' XP with 'security patches.'

Anyone noticing anything similar?

i havent noticed that, i have xp on my PC and vista on my laptop. I do find vista uses a unnesicary amount of ram. My pc only has 1 gig and although it has a petter processer and is older than my laptop it still runs faster. The only concern i have about automatic updates is it finding ilegal software/downloads lol

i too have a quad core and 3 gig of ram..my firefox takes 5-10 seconds to open sometimes..other times it says connection timed out...

There's a painledd fix for these problems. Swtch to a Linux based OS. it'll run faster, less problems, and Microstinks can't mess with your head.

Unlike even a few years ago, some Linux systems run everything Windows does, and are as easy to install as Vista.

Plus, you don't need all those patches and spyware and crap. Best of all, you'll love the price.

I have heard Microsoft will stop sales of XP sometime this year.

* I find Vista, extremely heavy duty... more crap than you need...
* I find most Vista systems slower than systems 4 years olds running XP.
* I think Vista is more than a operating system - something else is there that I can not put my finger on.
* I find systems with 2.0 gigs of Ram - run Vista ok, it also allows your system to stay infected a whole lot longer than if you had 512 mb ram.
* I find vista harder to penetrate than XP, however, vista comes complete with stuff that sort of lends me to believe this system is not that secure - but it has a hidden function's - ARE YOU SURE..? is sort of like signing an affidavide every time you want to do something.
* one thing computers do very well - THEY KEEP RECORDS
* Vista is HUGE, performs poorly, is not intuitive, and the general opinion is it sucks as bad if not worse than Linux.

reply to post by NGC2736


i switched over to linux back in 2001, internet great, but had trouble with apps. switched back and now using vista premium on new duo quad, 4 gig ram, slower then XP, even with hi-speed cable modem, but too lazy to go thru the changeover again. i'll go to the site you suggested and see if it's worth trying again. besides, my porn is probably worse then the MSCE boys have on theirs.

[edit on 12-6-2008 by jimmyx]

[edit on 12-6-2008 by jimmyx]

Nothing definitive, the nature of a patch is to add to or replace software, with extra logic to work around or fix problems. And the incentive is to make the patches as minimal as possible, changing as little of the previous code as before, to avoid introducing new problem. This means, rather than actually fixing underlying problems, patches tend to add 'special case' handlers that only slow things down.

Circumstantially, Microsoft is certainly Machiavellian enough to take deliberate advantage of this slowdown to push Vista. Search google for "halloween documents" or "evangilism is war" for some real corporate scariness, if you want.

As is common with Microsoft OSes, you might see considerable performance boost by doing a 'clean' reinstall, with service patches, if you can handle the hassle of having to reinstall the various other software you use. Also, many anti-virus solutions can slow system performance by as much as 50%, so you may want to look into what you're using there.

Second the posters who recommend linux -- don't forget there's alternatives out there. I use Ubuntu personally and Fedora professionally.

Firefox-2 has alot of memory leaks problems, sometimes mine can take up to 500MB of ram, the dev team have it all fixed in Firefox-3 but you need to wait for the stable release, still in beta at the moment.

I use firefox daily but only for shoping, paying bills, and viewing ATS.

I have a very fast computer myself, and as far back as I can remember, firefox always took 10-15 sec to open.

[edit on 6/13/08 by Cyprex]

Originally posted by Cyprex
I have a very fast computer myself, and as far back as I can remember, firefox always took 10-15 sec to open.
[edit on 6/13/08 by Cyprex]

Huh, strange. I'm using a 750MHz computer, Firefox 2.0, and several plug-ins and extensions (on my standard profile).

I just timed it, and Firefox takes about 7 seconds to open.

I've also heard about the memory leak problems, and sometimes the browser can use a lot of memory, but I don't think I've seen it use more than about 100MB of allocation, on my 512MB physical memory machine.

Edit: proofread!


[edit on 13-6-2008 by Ian McLean]

reply to post by gulfstreamsalt


You can always try running firefox in its safe mode and see how it behaves then. Also, you can download the official firefox release that comes out on Tuesday (17th) or one the very usable release candidate 3. A Security Patch can muck things up, its definitely been known to happen.

Vista is quite a resource whore either way.

[edit on 13-6-2008 by Kluge]

I run XP, and my girlfriend runs Vista... we seem to get patches about the same time, and we both notice these quirks. She actually has had more problems with Vista than what it's worth... what a resource hog!

I've had hangups in Firefox as long as I can remember... but I have alot less malware and adware intrusions than I did with Internet Exploder.

Honestly, clean install and patches is the best way to go. I had it explained to me that when you have programs installed, and MS patches something that has to do with a function that program makes use of, the prog has to struggle a bit to work properly. Harder to explain without a napkin and pen, lol.

Try this: Back up all your bookmarks and settings, make note of the plugins you have installed, and then COMPLETELY remove Firefox and re-install. When you reinstall FF, it should make better use of the new prog pathing instead of being basically buried under layers of MS security updates.

I own a very beefy machine as well.When Microsoft updates to your PC it leaves
temporary files and archived old files in your registry.I recommend cleaning all temporary files and archived files from your registry using a registry cleaner.Here is a good one and free for 30 days.
regvac.com...

I also would set your Firefox to delete cookies and temporary internet files when you log off of Firefox. You will notice a dramatic increase of speed.

Microsoft doesn't have to trick you into it, they can simply stop supporting xp and force you into it. No reason to get all tricky with creating software with highly paid engineers just to mess up firefox. Considering the vast majority of people use IE, it would be far more effective to mess up that rather than firefox anyway.

As far as patching functions, no... not really... when they release patches, they're replacing 'objects', typically. To your apps and programs, these objects are simply inputs and outputs, blackboxes, so to speak. Updates are typically replacing these objects with updated versions, so long as the inputs/outputs remain as designed, your programs work. Now that's not to say the code inside the object it interfaces with couldn't have become more/less efficient.

Vista is far from a crime against anything, i personally find it quite neat, though overpriced as usual. I got a non supported copy of Ultimate that I ran for some time after attending a MS release event for office, but the lack of support made it difficult to run for long. It's a bit of a resource hog, but so was xp, 98, and 3.1 when they came out, in a year or 2 when everyone runs 2+ gigs of DDR3 and the new gens of cpu's it's back to the % of system resources that xp was using. You could use linux, but lets be honest, it's still not the most user friendly OS out there for the common office user, hell, look how much time Apple spent to make unix/linux a 'common mans' OS.

[edit on 14-6-2008 by sp00ner]

Whats the rush?

Ive only recently upgraded from win98 to win2k on a 500mhz 512mb machine
and I can do everything i need to do.

Don't use any anti spyware/virus programs and only once was fooled by a JS exploit - Acronis True Image to the rescue - since running NoScript firefox plug in

Use firefox only - uninstalled IE, wouldn't touch it with a barge poll.

I conceed iI have to block some adds on ATS to get the pages to load in a timely fashion -but Im also on a very slow dialup.

Next upgrade will be Linux

Originally posted by thepresidentsbrain
Use firefox only - uninstalled IE, wouldn't touch it with a barge poll.

Neither one is perfect, if you're running firefox's browser or mail client, you've been running with gaping security holes on and off for years, which is no different than IE or Safari for that matter. Firefox tends to react faster than Microsoft to fix them, but the holes are still there, and pretty much every version of firefox has had some hole in it.

[edit on 14-6-2008 by sp00ner]

I may not have the most secure computer running with Windows ME and Firefox most of the time. However Firefox starts up in only a couple of seconds. It's like point, click, it's open in a snap. I'm wondering if a new pc with Vista is going to be better. I'm using only a 1 gig hz pc.

[edit on 14-6-2008 by orionthehunter]

Great thread.

I've been running firefox for years and apart from the slower start up speed of it, I've not really had any problems.
I'm currently using the beta version...I like it.

As some have suggested, whenever installing new software, clean all your history, do a registry clean up, scan disk, defrag, spy/virus/malware search and clean... then install your new stuff.

It's a pain but i do all that regularly anyway. Use my computer a lot.

I've currently got two hard drives installed and am considering giving Linux a run for its money on one drive. Never really looked into it until the other day.

As far as programmes for reccomendation for computer maintenance, I'll list off what I've got installed.

Spybot
a-squared
XP TCP/IP repair
Hijackthis
Belarc advisor
Auslogics system info
IObit smart defrag
anti virus

I recommend you take a further look at what else IObit and Auslogics have to offer too..you might be pleasantly surprised

And a link to Linux for the curious

i havent run any virus protection for a year now and it has been sweet i think virus programs use alot of resourses. get adaware check what starts up with your computer whenever you install something always say no to quickstart or quick launch icons try to disable some stuff from the taskbar by the clock on the bottom right

Here's some hopefully-helpful advice about configuring Firefox. This is the browser setup I normally use. I'm using Firefox 2.0.

The single most helpful thing to understand is the Firefox Profile Manager. This is not accessible from the menus, but rather from the command line or shortcut you use to launch Firefox. The Profile Manager lets you set up different browser profiles, each with different settings, extensions, browser cache, cookies, etc. Each profile is like using a totally different machine.

To start the profile manager, either type 'firefox -P' on the command line, or locate the shortcut to Firefox, make a copy, and then, in the properties, add '-P' to the command line. This will open a little menu before the browser window. You can create new profiles and select what profile to use here. Firefox creates one profile, called 'default', which is what is normally used without the -P option.

For example, you could create the following profiles:

Default: no cookies, ad, script, and flash blocker extensions, clean cache on exit

Personal: keep cookies, ad-blocker extension only, clean cache on exit

ATS: keep cookies, no ad-blocker or other extensions

Then, you can do normal browsing, to various 'wild' websites, with the 'Default' profile, access personal accounts such as email and banking with the 'Personal' profile, and use the 'ATS' profile for here (in a ToS-friendly manner).

For Firefox extensions, I can recommend the following:

Adblock Plus, with the EasyList subscription. You may want to also add a few extra filters, such as '*quantserve.com*', '*quantcast.com*', '*syndication*', etc.

NoScript: This disables, by default, Java and JavaScript, while giving you notification where scripting is used, and letting you simply click on an in-page icon to selectively or temporarily enable scripts you want to run.

Flashblock: This does the same thing, except for Flash. So you can avoid annoying Flash banners without having to completely uninstall it.

DownloadHelper: This allows you to cache playback of videos such as YouTube and Google Video, so you can play them back in a decent video player locally, rather that the cruddy players embedded in web pages.

As mentioned, you can selectively enable or disable different extensions in different profiles. You can also set different preferences, bookmarks, etc. Here's a few preferences I change in the Edit/Preferences menu, on various profiles:

Privacy/History: disable or adjust history settings

Privacy/Cookies: turn on/off 'accept cookies from sites'

Privacy/Private Data: turn on 'Always clear my private data when I close Firefox', adjust entries in the 'Settings' button

Security: turn off 'Tell my if the site I'm visiting is a suspected forgery' -- this avoids Firefox contacting google every time you start it, and downloading large lists of data in the background

Advanced/Network/Cache: Adjust the number of MB disk space used for a cache

Advanced/Update: Adjust automatic check-for-update settings

Also, be sure to edit the default bookmarks, and remove any of the 'live' bookmarks that you don't want. These cause Firefox, for example, to contact the BBC every time it is started, to download the latest headlines. If you want to track a little more what your browser is doing, I can recommend using a program called 'Wireshark' to view the network traffic that's generated.

Hope this is helpful!