TweakHound

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TTFN AIM

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AOL Instant Messenger will be shutting down in December. AIM was for many the first way to chat online. I haven’t used it since, heck I dunno, the early Windows XP days? I do have fond memories of it though. It was so very cool and easy to converse via the internet with folks from far away.

Goodbye Acronis True Image

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I’m switching to Macrium Reflect Free and Clonezilla (free too).
Ditching Acronis has been coming for a while. Over the last couple of years I have increasingly heard from users where Acronis True Image has failed them. Over the last year I’ve encountered issues on numerous occasions. The only thing saving me is I have dozens of full backups. Problems have included freezing during restore and multiple USB device issues.
*note – I only backup and restore offline using bootable media, old habits…
Although I will be using both Macrium Reflect Free and Clonezilla I will be recommending Macrium Reflect Free to the masses. Macrium Reflect Free is fast and easy to use. It provides a way to easily make a Windows PE based bootable CD or USB drive customized to your machine. It contains everything the majority of users could want.
Clonezilla is slower than Macrium but will image any and everything. Having no GUI, non-Geeks my be intimidated. Having said that, if you just follow the on screen instructions you should be fine.
Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition is available. As of this writing I know the linked page says “coming soon” but you end up downloading v7.0.2199.

CCleaner 5.35

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Version History
v5.35.6210 (20 Sep 2017)
– All builds signed with new Digital Signatures

Download
I use the portable version and that link isn’t live as of this writing.

If you want a version of CCleaner before it was bought by Avast it would be v5.32.6129 (11 Jul 2017) or older.
Get it now. I don’t know how long these will be live.
http://download.piriform.com/ccsetup532.exe
http://download.piriform.com/ccsetup532.zip

CCleaner Compromised

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“For a period of time, the legitimate signed version of CCleaner 5.33 being distributed by Avast also contained a multi-stage malware payload that rode on top of the installation of CCleaner… During the installation of CCleaner 5.33, the 32-bit CCleaner binary that was included also contained a malicious payload that featured a Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA) as well as hardcoded Command and Control (C2) functionality. We confirmed that this malicious version of CCleaner was being hosted directly on CCleaner’s download server as recently as September 11, 2017.”
[Read more…] about CCleaner Compromised