services

An illegal streaming service offering more than a hundred thousand television episodes and ten thousand movies with no restrictions on device or location has been closed down. That's because the two men operating it have both pleaded guilty to ... copyright infringement. iStreamItAll was a subscription service that - had it been legal - would arguably have been the best value on the market, offering a bigger range than four leading legal services combined. Indeed, its chief Darryl Polo actively marketed it to customers of Netflix, Amazon Prime and similar services as a better option with a wider ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Paul D. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have an external drive I use for backups. The other day I went to restore from backup but it aborted, stating the backup was corrupt. I have since run chkdsk (check disk) on the external drive and ... chkdsk reported that ' The Volume Bitmap is incorrect ' and to 'run chkdsk /scan to find the problems and queue them for repair.' I did that, but chkdsk says ' The shadow copy provider had an error ... A snapshot error occured while scanning this drive .' I have searched the Internet for an answer to this problem but can't figure out how to get ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bill K. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your excellent and concise explanations regarding VPNs (virtual private networks). I read with interest the latest article, ' Difference Between VPN Server and VPN (Service) ' and also ' ... Do I need a VPN? Are VPNs Safe for Online Banking? '. I was wondering if you could explain the difference between a VPN vs Proxy ? Which one is better? Can I use a Proxy with bit torrent or browsing the web anonymously? " My response: In this case, the term "proxy" refers to a "proxy server", which is a special use server online the Internet that is ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve J. writes: " Dear Dennis, Last week two of my systems (one a PC, the other a laptop) upgraded to Windows 10 version 1803, otherwise known as the 'April Creators Update' version of Windows 10. Ever since then, I can't access ... my laptop from my PC, though my PC can see the laptop. If I try and access either one directly, Windows 10 says it can't find the computer. Also my remote desktop protocol (RDP) no longer works. Researching ' network unc path april creators update broken ' in Google reveals that this is an incredibly widespread issue. Can you please help? " My ... (view more)

YouTube has removed hundred of videos which included promotions for essay-writing services. The company says it breaches its rules but the video presenters say they weren't given enough warning. The case doesn't involve ads placed via YouTube itself ... that are shown to viewers before popular videos, or display ads shown on the site. Instead the 'ads' were part of the videos themselves. 700 Million Views For Promotions A BBC investigation found that more than 250 people who produce popular YouTube videos had broken off in the middle of a clip to promote EduBirdie, a Ukraine-based service which ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Paul P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I've been using OpenVPN, coupled with Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to connect my laptop to my home PC when I'm on the road. It's worked great for a while now, however, suddenly remote ... desktop has stopped working and I can't connect to my PC anymore. The strange thing is that OpenVPN seems to complete the connection, so I am not sure why my RDP won't work any more. Can you help? " My response: I asked Paul if he would like me to connect to his laptop using my remote desktop service in order to investigate the problem further, and ... (view more)

Myths About VPNs Are you being tracked online? Can you use the Internet without restrictions? Do you need a VPN? There are a lot of myths about whether VPNs are truly needed; below we'll look at some common myths versus facts. Myth 1: The average ... person does not need a VPN Incorrect. Internet censorship is increasing, while the list of blocked websites is growing. If you start using a free vpn service now, you can: avoid monitoring of your activity in the Internet; access blocked websites (such as torrent trackers); access foreign websites and services that are inaccessible in your ... (view more)

More than 400 leading websites could be compromising user security by collecting everything the user types - whether or not the user is aware. A Princeton University study also found the collected information was not always adequately protected and ... anonymized. The problem highlighted by the study was the use of third-party tools that website owners can use to find out more about how people navigate their site. These tools often track precisely where the user moves a mouse cursor along with information they type in, even if they then delete it. In principle these "session replay" tools can be ... (view more)

Google has been fined $2.7 billion for unfairly favoring its own shopping services in search results. It's also got 90 days to stop the practice. The decision comes from the European Commission, the body that oversees competition law in 28 European ... countries. At the end of an investigation that started back in 2010, it now says Google did breach antitrust rules. The case relates to shopping comparison services, which let users see prices from multiple retailers. When people search Google for a particular product, the list of results will often include links to the relevant pages on such ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Rachel P. writes: " Dear Dennis, As per your recommendation, I have installed Malwarebytes Antimalware Free on my system and I do a full system scan every 30 days or so. Today I tried to launch Malwarebytes Antimalware Free ... ("MBAM") and it gives me an error, stating that it is 'Unable to start' and 'Unable to connect to service' , with an option to click 'OK' and nothing else. I don't know how to fix this. Can you please help? " My response: I have run across this issue a few times with my clients, but resolving it is not always the same. I asked Rachel if she would like me ... (view more)