Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Fix Firefox v57 (Firefox Quantum) high memory utilization (for computers with 4GB RAM or less)

When Firefox Quantum was launched everybody praised it as the next best thing (browser).
But if you look closelly you will only see modest speed improvements into the browser. HOWEVER, you will see massive slowdowns in Windows. At least I did in mine. Why because instead of taking 600-900MB for regular browsing the new Firefox takes not 2GB!

This is because a thing called "multi-process Firefox" was activated by default. The multi-process was suposed to make Firefox more stable. However, it also makes the browser much much larger.

So, how do you make Firefox behave? You disable multi-process:
1. Type "about:config" in Firefox Address bar (where you enter the address of a website).
2. Do a search for "browser.tabs.remote.autostart"
3. Disable it.

_________________

More gory details about this here:
https://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/22/multi-process-firefox/
TLDR

Thursday, November 9, 2017

False antivirus reports on installers created with WinRAR


I recently observed that Setup files created with WinRar have a high false positive detection rate from antiviruses.
Here are the conclusions of some test I made, in order to reduce the false positive rate:

RAR version    SFX module     Detection ratio
WinRar 3.11      32bit             1/66
WinRar 4.2       32bit?            3/66
WinRar 5.50      32bit             6/67
WinRar 5.50      64bit             1/67

Notes:
The detection ratio is not affected by the 32/64 bit version of WinRAR program at all.
However, it is strongly affected by the SFX module used.

The test file created with WinRar was named Setup.exe and it contained a single URL file in it.
In one test, the Setup file was packed with UPX. This reduced the detection ratio from:
 8 false positives to only 4
 6 false positives to 6 (no reduction), in other case

A program built in Delphi raises more false positives if the 'Compiler optimizations' is on.

Friday, November 3, 2017

Thunderbird cannot connect to gmail after changing password [FIXED]

0) ALLOW LESS SECURE APPS: Login to gmail using your browser, switch to your google account (top-right round button), go to Sign-in & Security>Connected apps & sites, scroll down until reach Allow less secure apps:OFF and turn it ON (if it's already on, leave as it is);

1) DELETE OLD GMAIL PASSWORD: Launch Thunderbird, select Preferences>Security>Passwords>Saved Passwords, select the gmail account from the list and click Remove; 2) CHANGE GMAIL ACCOUNT SETTINGS: Launch Thunderbird, go to Tools>Account Settings>Server Settings of the gmail account you need to bring back to work, switch Authentication Method from Oauth2 to Normal Password and click OK (when requested by Thunderbird, digit the new gmail password);

3) Scroll down to the end of your account list on the left side of the window until you reach Outgoing Server (SMTP) and select it; 4) Select your gmail address from the list, click Edit, switch the Authentication Method to Normal Password as well and click OK

How to fix invalid Google Drive quota!

I recently have seen that 25% of my GDrive quota was occupied by something. But my GDrive has in it only 0.7GB. So, who gets the rest of the space.
It turns out that there are files in my Google Drive that are not assigned to a folder. Therefore they are "hidden" from view.

To see these files just click this link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/search?q=is:unorganized%20owner:me
Review what you want to keep/delete (probably you will delete them all) and get rid of them. Don't forget to empty your trash also.

No my quota shows only 6% occupied.