I'm afraid this is rather long, but I am looking for any insight
anybody could offer, and know there is a wide spread of expertise
here..

I was doing some research before deciding about renewing my
Kaspersky subscription in a few days. I noticed that, as part of
my existing installation, they also load the free version of
their VPN, with limited capacity. I have never enabled it, so I
uninstalled it.

(I am running Firefox 105.0.1 on Windows 10 on my desktop, wired
to a Netgear R7000 and a Virgin media box in modem mode. I use
Kaspersky Internet Protection.)

Than I noticed that Firefox would not connect to any sites,
telling me:

"Secure Connection Failed
An error occurred during a connection to www.facebook.com.
PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the
authenticity of the received data could not be verified."

This applied to all sites. Addresses on my own network, such as
my router show:

"The connection was reset
The connection to the server was reset while the page was
loading."

Other browsers (Chrome, Edge) on my desktop work fine. Opera is
OK for web sites, but local addresses give:

"This site can't be reached
XXX.XXX.X.X's server IP address could not be found."

Also, Forte Agent, which I use for Usenet and email gives
"Connection closed unexpectedly by server" for both usenet
servers and both email sources.

Turning Kaspersky protection on or off in Firefox settings does
not appear to have any effect, nor does starting Firefox in
Troubleshoot mode. A brand new profile on a different user on my
PC, which obviously would have no pre-existing Firefox cache to
create problems, behaved just the same.

This applies to all users on the computer. My laptop, connected
over wi-fi to the same router works OK. So far as I can, I have
ensured all relevant setups are the same.

Agent, being an old-school program, has a plain text .ini file,
and although it loads the program locally, will use any specified
Agent.ini, so on the laptop it is getting the Agent.ini (which
includes login details) and all its data from the desktop, and
has no issues.

I spent some time in headless chicken mode, trying to turn off
protections in as many places as I could find, looking at DNS
settings etc., following suggestions found on Google, all to no
avail.

Fearing that I may have made matters worse, I restored the C
drive from a backup taken before the issues arose. This restored
Agent for a short while, but it soon reverted, and it didn't cure
anything else.

Ping and tracert both appear to show good connectivity. My
conclusion is that the issue is not at router level, but is
localised to my desktop, and is probably some form of protection
or filtering in operation.

I guess I could attempt to uninstall Kaspersky entirely (BTW what
program is recommended these days?), and turn everything off in
Windows, but if this doesn't work, I don't know where to go.

Maybe something is amiss in the registry, but that is a dangerous
area in which to dabble aimlessly.

I'm sure it is something which might be obvious, but right now I
am running out of ideas.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
chris@cdixon.me.uk @ChrisJDixon1

Plant amazing Acers.

Chris J Dixon wrote:

> Than I noticed that Firefox would not connect to any sites,
> telling me:
>
> "Secure Connection Failed
> An error occurred during a connection to www.facebook.com.
> PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR
> The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the
> authenticity of the received data could not be verified."

various AV products intercept your webtraffic, so they can look at the encrypted
traffic, to do that they have to get your PC to trust a different certificate,
they do that in a way that doesn't include firefox, there are ways to import
their cert into fixrefox, so it will trust the AV.

> I guess I could attempt to uninstall Kaspersky entirely (BTW what
> program is recommended these days?)

I would uninstall, I've used only microsoft defender for several years.

On 04/10/2022 19:26, Chris J Dixon wrote:
> I'm afraid this is rather long, but I am looking for any insight
> anybody could offer, and know there is a wide spread of expertise
> here..
>
> I was doing some research before deciding about renewing my
> Kaspersky subscription in a few days. I noticed that, as part of
> my existing installation, they also load the free version of
> their VPN, with limited capacity. I have never enabled it, so I
> uninstalled it.
>
> (I am running Firefox 105.0.1 on Windows 10 on my desktop, wired
> to a Netgear R7000 and a Virgin media box in modem mode. I use
> Kaspersky Internet Protection.)
>
> Than I noticed that Firefox would not connect to any sites,
> telling me:
>
> "Secure Connection Failed
> An error occurred during a connection to www.facebook.com.
> PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR
> The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the
> authenticity of the received data could not be verified."
>
> This applied to all sites. Addresses on my own network, such as
> my router show:
>
> "The connection was reset
> The connection to the server was reset while the page was
> loading."
>
> Other browsers (Chrome, Edge) on my desktop work fine. Opera is
> OK for web sites, but local addresses give:
>
> "This site can't be reached
> XXX.XXX.X.X's server IP address could not be found."
>
> Also, Forte Agent, which I use for Usenet and email gives
> "Connection closed unexpectedly by server" for both usenet
> servers and both email sources.
>
> Turning Kaspersky protection on or off in Firefox settings does
> not appear to have any effect, nor does starting Firefox in
> Troubleshoot mode. A brand new profile on a different user on my
> PC, which obviously would have no pre-existing Firefox cache to
> create problems, behaved just the same.
>
> This applies to all users on the computer. My laptop, connected
> over wi-fi to the same router works OK. So far as I can, I have
> ensured all relevant setups are the same.
>
> Agent, being an old-school program, has a plain text .ini file,
> and although it loads the program locally, will use any specified
> Agent.ini, so on the laptop it is getting the Agent.ini (which
> includes login details) and all its data from the desktop, and
> has no issues.
>
> I spent some time in headless chicken mode, trying to turn off
> protections in as many places as I could find, looking at DNS
> settings etc., following suggestions found on Google, all to no
> avail.
>
> Fearing that I may have made matters worse, I restored the C
> drive from a backup taken before the issues arose. This restored
> Agent for a short while, but it soon reverted, and it didn't cure
> anything else.
>
> Ping and tracert both appear to show good connectivity. My
> conclusion is that the issue is not at router level, but is
> localised to my desktop, and is probably some form of protection
> or filtering in operation.
>
> I guess I could attempt to uninstall Kaspersky entirely (BTW what
> program is recommended these days?), and turn everything off in
> Windows, but if this doesn't work, I don't know where to go.
>
> Maybe something is amiss in the registry, but that is a dangerous
> area in which to dabble aimlessly.
>
> I'm sure it is something which might be obvious, but right now I
> am running out of ideas.
>
> Chris

Are you saying that everything was hunky dory until you uninstalled
Kapersky VPN?

If so, is it possible that this caused some shared resource - on which
Firefox, etc. depend - to be deleted?

Have you tried re-installing/repairing Firefox?

--
Cheers,
Roger

On 04/10/2022 in message <jq3dptF2mgbU1@mid.individual.net> Andy Burns
wrote:

>>I guess I could attempt to uninstall Kaspersky entirely (BTW what
>>program is recommended these days?)
>
>I would uninstall, I've used only microsoft defender for several years.

+1 to that, I've only ever used whatever MSFT provides since Windows 3.1.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant

On 04/10/2022 19:26, Chris J Dixon wrote:
> I'm afraid this is rather long, but I am looking for any insight
> anybody could offer, and know there is a wide spread of expertise
> here..

> I guess I could attempt to uninstall Kaspersky entirely (BTW what
> program is recommended these days?), and turn everything off in
> Windows, but if this doesn't work, I don't know where to go.
>
> Maybe something is amiss in the registry, but that is a dangerous
> area in which to dabble aimlessly.

It is possible that the VPN had various filter driver layers installed
into the IP stack, and one of those was not removed correctly.

I think in the first instance I would try:

Open a command prompt with admin privileges

First do the winsock reset:

netsh winsock reset

Then reset the IP configuration:

netsh int ip reset

Finally restart your computer, and see if that fixes the problem.

If you want to see what changes were made, then before you do the first bit:

netsh winsock show catalog > before.txt

and after completing the procedure:

netsh winsock show catalog > after.txt

Now compare the two text files.

If the above does not fix it then try the following in an admin command
prompt :

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

SFC /scannow

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

On 04/10/2022 22:16, Jeff Gaines wrote:
> On 04/10/2022 in message <jq3dptF2mgbU1@mid.individual.net> Andy Burns
> wrote:
>
>>> I guess I could attempt to uninstall Kaspersky entirely (BTW what
>>> program is recommended these days?)
>>
>> I would uninstall, I've used only microsoft defender for several years.
>
> +1 to that, I've only ever used whatever MSFT provides since Windows 3.1.

MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1. You had to wait until XP to
get *some* protection (it was only an anti spyware package at this
point). Microsoft security essentials added full AV protection as well
but that was into the Vista / Win 7 era. Win XP shipped without even
having a firewall.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

On 04/10/2022 19:26, Chris J Dixon wrote:
> I'm afraid this is rather long, but I am looking for any insight
> anybody could offer, and know there is a wide spread of expertise
> here..
>
> I was doing some research before deciding about renewing my
> Kaspersky subscription in a few days. I noticed that, as part of
> my existing installation, they also load the free version of
> their VPN, with limited capacity. I have never enabled it, so I
> uninstalled it.
>
> (I am running Firefox 105.0.1 on Windows 10 on my desktop, wired
> to a Netgear R7000 and a Virgin media box in modem mode. I use
> Kaspersky Internet Protection.)
>
> Than I noticed that Firefox would not connect to any sites,
> telling me:
>
> "Secure Connection Failed
> An error occurred during a connection to www.facebook.com.
> PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR
> The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the
> authenticity of the received data could not be verified."
>
> This applied to all sites. Addresses on my own network, such as
> my router show:
>
> "The connection was reset
> The connection to the server was reset while the page was
> loading."
>
> Other browsers (Chrome, Edge) on my desktop work fine. Opera is
> OK for web sites, but local addresses give:
>
> "This site can't be reached
> XXX.XXX.X.X's server IP address could not be found."
>
> Also, Forte Agent, which I use for Usenet and email gives
> "Connection closed unexpectedly by server" for both usenet
> servers and both email sources.
>
> Turning Kaspersky protection on or off in Firefox settings does
> not appear to have any effect, nor does starting Firefox in
> Troubleshoot mode. A brand new profile on a different user on my
> PC, which obviously would have no pre-existing Firefox cache to
> create problems, behaved just the same.
>
> This applies to all users on the computer. My laptop, connected
> over wi-fi to the same router works OK. So far as I can, I have
> ensured all relevant setups are the same.
>
> Agent, being an old-school program, has a plain text .ini file,
> and although it loads the program locally, will use any specified
> Agent.ini, so on the laptop it is getting the Agent.ini (which
> includes login details) and all its data from the desktop, and
> has no issues.
>
> I spent some time in headless chicken mode, trying to turn off
> protections in as many places as I could find, looking at DNS
> settings etc., following suggestions found on Google, all to no
> avail.
>
> Fearing that I may have made matters worse, I restored the C
> drive from a backup taken before the issues arose. This restored
> Agent for a short while, but it soon reverted, and it didn't cure
> anything else.
>
> Ping and tracert both appear to show good connectivity. My
> conclusion is that the issue is not at router level, but is
> localised to my desktop, and is probably some form of protection
> or filtering in operation.
>
> I guess I could attempt to uninstall Kaspersky entirely (BTW what
> program is recommended these days?), and turn everything off in
> Windows, but if this doesn't work, I don't know where to go.
>
> Maybe something is amiss in the registry, but that is a dangerous
> area in which to dabble aimlessly.
>
> I'm sure it is something which might be obvious, but right now I
> am running out of ideas.
>
> Chris

Dump windows 10 and install linux Mint

--
"Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and
higher education positively fortifies it."

- Stephen Vizinczey

On 04/10/2022 19:53, Andy Burns wrote:
> Chris J Dixon wrote:
>
>
>> Than I noticed that Firefox would not connect to any sites,
>> telling me:
>>
>> "Secure Connection Failed
>> An error occurred during a connection to www.facebook.com.
>> PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR
>> The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the
>> authenticity of the received data could not be verified."
>
> various AV products intercept your webtraffic, so they can look at the
> encrypted traffic, to do that they have to get your PC to trust a
> different certificate, they do that in a way that doesn't include
> firefox, there are ways to import their cert into fixrefox, so it will
> trust the AV.
>
>> I guess I could attempt to uninstall Kaspersky entirely (BTW what
>> program is recommended these days?)
>
> I would uninstall, I've used only microsoft defender for several years.
>
>

+1
Then make sure Kaspersky doesn't renew automatically & take the renewal
fee without you knowledge.

--
Regards
wasbit

On 05/10/2022 in message <thjfht$2uehe$1@dont-email.me> John Rumm wrote:

>>+1 to that, I've only ever used whatever MSFT provides since Windows 3.1.
>
>MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1.

That must have been what I used then, it was 30 years ago!

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
I've been through the desert on a horse with no name.
It was a right bugger to get him back when he ran off.

On 05/10/2022 09:34, John Rumm wrote:
>
> MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1. You had to wait until XP to
> get *some* protection (it was only an anti spyware package at this
> point). Microsoft security essentials added full AV protection as well
> but that was into the Vista / Win 7 era. Win XP shipped without even
> having a firewall.

AFAICR without checking - awkward ATM because my XP laptop is closed
with a scanner on top of it and piles of old family letters on my desk
which I don't want to disturb - XP had a firewall, 2k did not.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

Java Jive wrote:

> AFAICR without checking  -  awkward ATM because my XP laptop is closed with a
> scanner on top of it and piles of old family letters on my desk which I don't
> want to disturb  -  XP had a firewall, 2k did not.

XP's firewall got seriously beefed up with SP2

If you can trace it to uninstalling the vpn, then one assumes you have tried
putting it back. The problems usually revolve around the registry not being
put back as it was, and/or the programs updated or installed since the
original vpn was installed now point to a void since they remember where
they pointed.
In the end it could be that windows would need to be completely removed
including all the software after backing up anything at all you need of
course, then reinstall windows, check that edge behaves, then gradually re
install software. I'm not at all sure if forte agent can be installed in the
latest builds of Windows though.
I guess you could try a dual boot and see if the other system will work
before burning the first install, but that very much depends on the size of
the drive and if you are allowed to move the partition without trashing the
existing system.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Chris J Dixon" <chris@cdixon.me.uk> wrote in message
news:8vtojhpltcc756sq52iinqnbk6fekcko14@4ax.com...
> I'm afraid this is rather long, but I am looking for any insight
> anybody could offer, and know there is a wide spread of expertise
> here..
>
> I was doing some research before deciding about renewing my
> Kaspersky subscription in a few days. I noticed that, as part of
> my existing installation, they also load the free version of
> their VPN, with limited capacity. I have never enabled it, so I
> uninstalled it.
>
> (I am running Firefox 105.0.1 on Windows 10 on my desktop, wired
> to a Netgear R7000 and a Virgin media box in modem mode. I use
> Kaspersky Internet Protection.)
>
> Than I noticed that Firefox would not connect to any sites,
> telling me:
>
> "Secure Connection Failed
> An error occurred during a connection to www.facebook.com.
> PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR
> The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the
> authenticity of the received data could not be verified."
>
> This applied to all sites. Addresses on my own network, such as
> my router show:
>
> "The connection was reset
> The connection to the server was reset while the page was
> loading."
>
> Other browsers (Chrome, Edge) on my desktop work fine. Opera is
> OK for web sites, but local addresses give:
>
> "This site can't be reached
> XXX.XXX.X.X's server IP address could not be found."
>
> Also, Forte Agent, which I use for Usenet and email gives
> "Connection closed unexpectedly by server" for both usenet
> servers and both email sources.
>
> Turning Kaspersky protection on or off in Firefox settings does
> not appear to have any effect, nor does starting Firefox in
> Troubleshoot mode. A brand new profile on a different user on my
> PC, which obviously would have no pre-existing Firefox cache to
> create problems, behaved just the same.
>
> This applies to all users on the computer. My laptop, connected
> over wi-fi to the same router works OK. So far as I can, I have
> ensured all relevant setups are the same.
>
> Agent, being an old-school program, has a plain text .ini file,
> and although it loads the program locally, will use any specified
> Agent.ini, so on the laptop it is getting the Agent.ini (which
> includes login details) and all its data from the desktop, and
> has no issues.
>
> I spent some time in headless chicken mode, trying to turn off
> protections in as many places as I could find, looking at DNS
> settings etc., following suggestions found on Google, all to no
> avail.
>
> Fearing that I may have made matters worse, I restored the C
> drive from a backup taken before the issues arose. This restored
> Agent for a short while, but it soon reverted, and it didn't cure
> anything else.
>
> Ping and tracert both appear to show good connectivity. My
> conclusion is that the issue is not at router level, but is
> localised to my desktop, and is probably some form of protection
> or filtering in operation.
>
> I guess I could attempt to uninstall Kaspersky entirely (BTW what
> program is recommended these days?), and turn everything off in
> Windows, but if this doesn't work, I don't know where to go.
>
> Maybe something is amiss in the registry, but that is a dangerous
> area in which to dabble aimlessly.
>
> I'm sure it is something which might be obvious, but right now I
> am running out of ideas.
>
> Chris
> --
> Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
> chris@cdixon.me.uk @ChrisJDixon1
>
> Plant amazing Acers.

On 05/10/2022 11:41, Java Jive wrote:
> On 05/10/2022 09:34, John Rumm wrote:
>>
>> MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1. You had to wait until XP to
>> get *some* protection (it was only an anti spyware package at this
>> point). Microsoft security essentials added full AV protection as well
>> but that was into the Vista / Win 7 era. Win XP shipped without even
>> having a firewall.
>
> AFAICR without checking  -  awkward ATM because my XP laptop is closed
> with a scanner on top of it and piles of old family letters on my desk
> which I don't want to disturb  -  XP had a firewall, 2k did not.

XP got an included firewall later after release, but that was included
in one of the service packs. The original release did not include one.

That got interesting in the era of worms like blaster, that spread by
exploiting RPC mechanisms, and could infect a machine without any user
interaction once it was connected to the internet[1].

Hence to get online safely you had to install AV software / firewall
from CD etc before making a dialup connection, otherwise you risked
infection during the time it took to make a connection to download
something like commodo or zonealarm and get it installed.

[1] In one respect dialup internet access was inherently more risky than
modern broadband access, since there was no router at your end of the
connection. Your computer was in effect directly connected to the
internet, and not hidden behind NAT/IP Masquerading. So once dialled in,
remote machines could attempt to make connections back to your machine.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

"John Rumm" wrote:
> On 04/10/2022 22:16, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>> On 04/10/2022 in message <jq3dptF2mgbU1@mid.individual.net> Andy Burns
>> wrote:
>>> I would uninstall, I've used only microsoft defender for several years.
>>
>> +1 to that, I've only ever used whatever MSFT provides since Windows 3.1.
>
> MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1.

They provided a DOS and Win AV with MSDOS 6.2 (and possibly earlier).
Win 3 ran on top of DOS.

"Microsoft Anti-Virus for Windows
(c) 1992-1993 By Central Point Software Inc."

Looking at the list of what it detected, they appear to be the typical
DOS and boot sector viruses that got passed around on floppy disks. No
network bourne malware to speak of for DOS/Win in those days. 1993 was
the year the WWW really got going for the general public.

On 05/10/2022 12:21, John Rumm wrote:

<SNIP>

> [1] In one respect dialup internet access was inherently more risky than
> modern broadband access, since there was no router at your end of the
> connection. Your computer was in effect directly connected to the
> internet, and not hidden behind NAT/IP Masquerading. So once dialled in,
> remote machines could attempt to make connections back to your machine.

Even early consumer broadband used a USB connected Broadband Modem and
not a router - so just as risky and with a faster connection for them to
exploit.

On 05/10/2022 16:37, SteveW wrote:
> On 05/10/2022 12:21, John Rumm wrote:
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> [1] In one respect dialup internet access was inherently more risky than
>> modern broadband access, since there was no router at your end of the
>> connection. Your computer was in effect directly connected to the
>> internet, and not hidden behind NAT/IP Masquerading. So once dialled in,
>> remote machines could attempt to make connections back to your machine.
>
> Even early consumer broadband used a USB connected Broadband Modem and
> not a router - so just as risky and with a faster connection for them to
> exploit.

I went from 3.1 to NT4 workstation in 1997, as it appeared to be more
stable and secure than 95. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that NT4 did
not support USB. I changed to XP as soon as that came out in 2001.

--

Jeff

John Rumm wrote:

>First do the winsock reset:
>
> netsh winsock reset
>
>Then reset the IP configuration:
>
> netsh int ip reset
>
>Finally restart your computer, and see if that fixes the problem.
>
>If you want to see what changes were made, then before you do the first bit:
>
>netsh winsock show catalog > before.txt
>
>and after completing the procedure:
>
>netsh winsock show catalog > after.txt
>
>
>Now compare the two text files.
>
>If the above does not fix it then try the following in an admin command
>prompt :
>
>DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
>
>SFC /scannow

Thanks very much for the advice John. I tried all of your
suggestions. They made a few tweaks, but didn't solve the
problem. As my Kaspersky licence is about to run out, I
uninstalled it completely, and all now appears well.

Right now I will see how Windows security performs, PC Pro seems
to think it can be a bit of a pain, so we will have to see.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
chris@cdixon.me.uk @ChrisJDixon1

Plant amazing Acers.

On Wed 05/10/2022 17:43, Jeff Layman wrote:
> On 05/10/2022 16:37, SteveW wrote:
>> On 05/10/2022 12:21, John Rumm wrote:
>>
>> <SNIP>
>>
>>> [1] In one respect dialup internet access was inherently more risky than
>>> modern broadband access, since there was no router at your end of the
>>> connection. Your computer was in effect directly connected to the
>>> internet, and not hidden behind NAT/IP Masquerading. So once dialled in,
>>> remote machines could attempt to make connections back to your machine.
>>
>> Even early consumer broadband used a USB connected Broadband Modem and
>> not a router - so just as risky and with a faster connection for them to
>> exploit.
>
> I went from 3.1 to NT4 workstation in 1997, as it appeared to be more
> stable and secure than 95. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that NT4 did
> not support USB. I changed to XP as soon as that came out in 2001.
>

In my book XP (SP2 or more) was probably the best version almost bar
none. The exception would have been 98SE if I still needed DOS
facilities such as being able to program amateur/mobile radios with a
serial cable.

On Wed, 05 Oct 2022 21:41:25 +1100, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid>
wrote:

> On 05/10/2022 09:34, John Rumm wrote:
>> MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1. You had to wait until XP to
>> get *some* protection (it was only an anti spyware package at this
>> point). Microsoft security essentials added full AV protection as well
>> but that was into the Vista / Win 7 era. Win XP shipped without even
>> having a firewall.
>
> AFAICR without checking - awkward ATM because my XP laptop is closed
> with a scanner on top of it and piles of old family letters on my desk
> which I don't want to disturb - XP had a firewall,

Yes it does.

> 2k did not.

On Wed, 5 Oct 2022 11:48:59 +0100
Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

> Java Jive wrote:
>
> > AFAICR without checking  -  awkward ATM because my XP laptop is
> > closed with a scanner on top of it and piles of old family letters
> > on my desk which I don't want to disturb  -  XP had a firewall, 2k
> > did not.
>
> XP's firewall got seriously beefed up with SP2
>

i.e. it was enabled by default, as it hadn't been until then.

--
Joe

On Thu, 06 Oct 2022 05:40:37 +1100, Woody <harrogate3@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> On Wed 05/10/2022 17:43, Jeff Layman wrote:
>> On 05/10/2022 16:37, SteveW wrote:
>>> On 05/10/2022 12:21, John Rumm wrote:
>>>
>>> <SNIP>
>>>
>>>> [1] In one respect dialup internet access was inherently more risky
>>>> than
>>>> modern broadband access, since there was no router at your end of the
>>>> connection. Your computer was in effect directly connected to the
>>>> internet, and not hidden behind NAT/IP Masquerading. So once dialled
>>>> in,
>>>> remote machines could attempt to make connections back to your
>>>> machine.
>>>
>>> Even early consumer broadband used a USB connected Broadband Modem and
>>> not a router - so just as risky and with a faster connection for them
>>> to
>>> exploit.
>> I went from 3.1 to NT4 workstation in 1997, as it appeared to be more
>> stable and secure than 95. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that NT4 did
>> not support USB. I changed to XP as soon as that came out in 2001.
>>
>
> In my book XP (SP2 or more) was probably the best version almost bar
> none.

Then you need a new book. Win7 leaves it for dead.

> The exception would have been 98SE if I still needed DOS facilities such
> as being able to program amateur/mobile radios with a serial cable.

On 05/10/2022 15:39, Apd wrote:
> "John Rumm" wrote:
>> On 04/10/2022 22:16, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>> On 04/10/2022 in message <jq3dptF2mgbU1@mid.individual.net> Andy Burns
>>> wrote:
>>>> I would uninstall, I've used only microsoft defender for several years.
>>>
>>> +1 to that, I've only ever used whatever MSFT provides since Windows 3.1.
>>
>> MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1.
>
> They provided a DOS and Win AV with MSDOS 6.2 (and possibly earlier).
> Win 3 ran on top of DOS.
>
> "Microsoft Anti-Virus for Windows
> (c) 1992-1993 By Central Point Software Inc."
>
> Looking at the list of what it detected, they appear to be the typical
> DOS and boot sector viruses that got passed around on floppy disks. No
> network bourne malware to speak of for DOS/Win in those days. 1993 was
> the year the WWW really got going for the general public.
Also Win 3.1 and DOS were separate products. It was not til Win 95 they
attempted to convince you otherwise.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

On Wed, 5 Oct 2022 12:21:49 +0100
John Rumm <see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:

> [1] In one respect dialup internet access was inherently more risky
> than modern broadband access, since there was no router at your end
> of the connection. Your computer was in effect directly connected to
> the internet, and not hidden behind NAT/IP Masquerading. So once
> dialled in, remote machines could attempt to make connections back to
> your machine.

I was running some version of Linux on a 386 as a firewall/router to
share the dial-up with my lodger.

"John Rumm" wrote:
> On 05/10/2022 15:39, Apd wrote:
>> "John Rumm" wrote:
>>> MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1.
>>
>> They provided a DOS and Win AV with MSDOS 6.2 (and possibly earlier).
>> Win 3 ran on top of DOS.
>>
>> "Microsoft Anti-Virus for Windows
>> (c) 1992-1993 By Central Point Software Inc."
>>
>> Looking at the list of what it detected, they appear to be the typical
>> DOS and boot sector viruses that got passed around on floppy disks. No
>> network bourne malware to speak of for DOS/Win in those days. 1993 was
>> the year the WWW really got going for the general public.
>
> Also Win 3.1 and DOS were separate products. It was not til Win 95 they
> attempted to convince you otherwise.

I remember wondering at the time why MS included Win versions of the
programs (also undelete) with DOS. Perhaps in the nature of the deal
with Central Point. DOS was still dominant when Win 3.1 came out.

On 05/10/2022 11:41, Java Jive wrote:
> On 05/10/2022 09:34, John Rumm wrote:
>>
>> MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1. You had to wait until XP to
>> get *some* protection (it was only an anti spyware package at this
>> point). Microsoft security essentials added full AV protection as well
>> but that was into the Vista / Win 7 era. Win XP shipped without even
>> having a firewall.
>
> AFAICR without checking  -  awkward ATM because my XP laptop is closed
> with a scanner on top of it and piles of old family letters on my desk
> which I don't want to disturb  -  XP had a firewall, 2k did not.
>
Yes XP had a firewall but it was turned off by default.
SP2 changed the setting to 'on by default'.

-
Regards
wasbit