Never had a problem here (I check on the website at least once a week), but then I connect on TOR Browser, which deletes everything at the end of each session anyway.

As a by-the-by, everything, and I mean absolutely everything, ought to be https for a long while. Tor Browser (and Mullvad Browser) only connect to https sites, and I have Firefox configured for the same. I also have scripts disabled as a rule, inc. JS, although I do enable it for a few sites.

It actually was a clean install of Windows 11 that I used. My wife and I started sharing one computer after hers died. It had a drive with Windows 10 for her and a drive with Windows 10 for me. When my full backup didn't work, I restored her drive with the clean install Windows 10 backup, and I did a clean install of Windows 11 23H2 on my drive. So there were no cookies on either drive.

Odd that we should both have no cookies, yet I still never had a problem with a Winstep server error, @Nezbit.

Glad to note that you're using Firefox and DuckDuckGo (don't touch Edge, remove it from your system, a huge data harvester). Best to use FF in Private Mode only, https only, and preferably with all scripts disabled until really needed.

DuckDuckGo, incidentally, uses Google's cache but of course stripped of all ads, tracking, etc. Great stuff.

Actually this might not be true. I just checked the MaxMind logs and the IP to Country queries were going full steam until February 14th (checked all the way from Aug 1). On February 15th they jumped down a cliff and there were 0 successful requests all day on February 16th. After my "fix" last night they resumed again.

So, the site was only down for "new" users for two to one and a half days, and whatever made the server begin to throw an error because of the MaxMind HTTPS request, it only began happening on February 14th/15th (depending on your timezone) - it also coincided with Nezbit PC troubles lol. Mind boggles.

Still, not as bad as unknowingly having the site inaccessible for a ton of new users for days on end.

Furthermore, as my memory recollection improves, I now remember I *DID* test the HTTP to HTTPS change when I made it and it was working fine back then.

So something broke or was changed on February 14th that now makes the server return an error when trying the HTTPS request. Since I didn't do anything to the server then, I wonder if it has actually nothing to do with the server itself. Hmmm....

I've used Firefox since the beginning. In the browser wars of old I was a fan of Netscape Navigator over IE, so the transition was easy. DuckDuckGo was a slow process. I always got better search search results with Google, and the DuckDuckGo fonts looked ugly on my monitor for some reason. I kept checking DuckDuckGo and noticed the results were getting much better (especially image and video searches). I then realized that I could easily change the fonts to my liking. What finally made me change was one day I was trying to extract an image from a Linux file of some sort. 7-zip didn't work and my old standby - Universal Extractor - didn't work either. Universal Extractor popped up an explanation why it didn't work, and so I searched for an answer on Google. I had Firefox open to Google the entire time, from downloading the file to searching for an answer. I wasn't happy with the answer, so I decided to search Google for an update to my ancient version of Universal Extractor. As soon as I typed in "uni", the first suggestion from Google was Universal Extractor. Not many people know what Universal Extractor is, so it was kind of spooky that Google suggested it out of nowhere.

I may be paranoid but that doesn't mean that they are not out to get me.



Yesterday when I was installing software on my fresh clean system, I also could not connect to Steam. In all my years of using Steam, I have never had a problem connecting. When I checked the "Unofficial Steam Status" site it showed that New York was Full Load, and Chicago and Dallas were N/A. This was in the middle of the day, so you would think that it would be easier to connect.

I'm happy to say that everything is back to normal today.

Same here re: FF and the old 'Nutscrape' (had the latter on OS/2). Even when I finally started seriously using NT4, IE didn't get a look in. One thing that's annoyed me for years now about FF is their selling the default search engine spot to Google - makes me wonder just how much influence Google wield over the browser.

As for DuckDuckGo, used that virtually from the start. I think it was default in TOR Browser almost as soon as it came along. (And of course there's DDGoOnion, with a TOR address.) Love it.


LOL! Didn't know that one was still in circulation! Truth of the matter though is that it has more than a ring of truth about it. Moving as society pretty much is into a global surveillance environment and state, I'm beginning to think we can't be paranoid enough!

I think I'm going to switch from DuckDuckGo to Startpage. I believe it offers the same privacy, it just looks nicer on my system.

I'm also giving the DuckDuckGo Browser a try. It seems to work very well. It even blocked one tracking attempt from Winstep.net.

I was surprised to learn years ago that just because you don't visit Google, Bing, etc..., it doesn't mean that you won't get cookies from those sites. I use CCleaner and you can see all the cookies on your system. It is amazing what some sites will dump on you. So yes, Firefox in Private Mode is the best.

I decided to give Windows 11 a try when I had to reinstall my system. It had a few features that I really liked and it runs very well on my seven year old computer. It loads faster, and my games run slightly better. On a couple of games that were pushing my system to the max, I am getting better frame rates and the games are running smoother. Now I just need to finish searching through the endless maze of settings (I'm sure Microsoft did this on purpose), and turn off everything that might be tracking me. I don't think the results will be as good as Windows 10, but that is the cost if you use your computer for gaming and want all the latest Windows features.

Thanks for all of you computer Security and Privacy advice. It's important to know what is out there lurking in the shadows.

Don't have the time to try Startpage, but then I also tend to work on the principle of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. I'm perfectly happy with DDG, so....

I noticed that Winstep.net tracker as well! Never have one tracker getting through though.

I have noticed with recent versions of FF, there seems to be a problem in that it doesn't delete all website data as it should. So before using it again I always clear everything manually.

One of the brilliant things about Proton Mail is that it strips out email trackers before email even gets into your inbox. And Proton VPN stops a whole lot of other nonsense as well.

As for DDG Browser, I'll give that a go as and when they do a Linux version as well. The last few months I've been testing Mullvad browser on Windows and Linux. It's good but still needs changing some settings manually. But better than the full FF for the average user anyway who can't be arsed to fiddle with settings.

Yes, there really is so much 'lurking in the dark' out there, but at least at present - if we're vigilant enough - the means to stop it affecting us are out there too.

Re: Firefox not deleting all website data in private mode when closing down, I forgot to say that it is principally offline website data. All the same, important to manually delete before next use.