Fine-tuning my PC...

Perhaps I'm getting too enthusiastic about this fine-tuning. I checked a website a while ago for tips on speeding up the starting of Windows, only to find out that I already knew just as much about it as the guy who wrote that article. And one of the tips he offered can actually interfere with the boot-up process if followed.

And there's one disadvantage to having a dual-boot setup consisting of Windows 7 and 8. Doing a full scan of the drive takes two hours and three minutes and involves over 610,000 files - and these two operating systems were just recently re-installed following a problem, so neither of them has been fully fluffed up yet with all my favorite third-party freebies and add-ons.

I've recently made one discovery, though. The Firefox browser seems to be more easily infected with malware than some of the others, in spite of it having several security add-ons that others don't offer. Evidently, there's holes in it.
Too bad, because it worked so well for years. No matter what your browser of choice, I recommend the Web of Trust add-on, better known as 'WOT'. It shows red, yellow, and green doughnuts in the upper right for the safety rating of sites. The McAfee SiteAdvisor also is a handy add-on. And while we're on this topic, let's not forget DuckDuckGo - and no, I'm not trying to be funny. That is actually its name, and it's a search-engine add-on that is heavily into anonymous surfing, and doesn't save its tracks. You should check it out...

This is DuckDuckGo when added to Internet Explorer, and it really works....