I suspect AVIRA uses a fully automated support system (AI), but whatever, their software has become bloated trash. At least with Bitdefender they have broken down their software into 3 tiers - one is just the anti virus/anti malware, the other one includes a firewall, vpn, etc, and the total security which includes all. AND BitDefender serves well as both an antivirus and anti malware, so instead of having avira and malwarebytes running in realtime, I can have only bitdefender.

AVIRA is/was a giant pain in my white arse AVIRA was very decent when it offered its anti-virus software separately - Avira AntiVirus Pro, but now they FORCE you to use their bundled CRAP and FORCE options to you !

SO when I uninstalled AVIRA there was a survey with an open box basically asking why - so I "TOLD" them what I thought about how they operate, and telling them off I did THEN I get a nice AI generated support e-mail telling me that they will be happy to take my feedback and other rubbish - I didn't reply to that follow-up it's useless anyway, I consider AVIRA malware / junkware now.

Yeah whatever Jello pudding, kinda ironic he did commercials for pudding - we all know what the creep had on his mind at the time That SMILE when he made those commercials - anyhow, he got off easy (wait wait, not a pun I swear, I mean the trial and outcome IMO)

So far happy with bitdefender, in fact, I might not even need Malwarebytes anymore, it has received excellent scores in lab tests for both malware and viruses, good bloody riddance to AVIRA and their overly expensive trash.

I've been a very long time and loyal user of AVIRA antivirus, which I recommended all the time on forums. AVIRA at the time was a company run in Germany, extremely reliable, giving you full control of what you want to do and most importantly, a high detection rate.

Unfortunately, some years ago they were acquired (allegedly) by a US company and since then things went downhill pretty fast - They completely changed the user interface and of course many of the options you could disable before were no longer there. AVIRA went from a company giving you full control to a company that shoves installed utilities down your throat, not even ASKING you first what components you want to install, even if you do not want to. Instead of the single AntiVirus Pro component, they started forcing you to install their FULL security suite which is essentially BLOATWARE. You could manage to uninstall some of it, with great difficulty, but they leave traces on your system and some simply cannot be.

A cool feature of the old AVIRA, it allowed you to configure how the software deals with threats. For example, if it found something suspicious or a threat, it allowed YOU, the paying customer to decide the ACTIONS to take. So you could configure the options to "Ask me always", which brings up options to ignore, deny access or move to quarantine, but NO, not anymore, it now moves everything to quarantine, BUT WAIT, not only that, it decides to delete some stuff too, because when you go to the quarantine it's empty !!!! There are many instances where it finds false positives, so you want to have full control over that, NOPE. and the stuff it does put into quarantine, you cannot immediately move it to exceptions, nope, you have to manually add those bloody exceptions.

Also AVIRA then decides they want to run periodic scans of my system at scheduled interval, BUT disallow me to remove scheduled tasks - very bad idea, why in the bloody hell would I want to scan my system everyday unless something new is added, so that is very bad.............. AND oh yeah, the LOGS, on old AVIRA, you could control logs, their locations, the storage limit. Today with AVIRA' you cannot, they remove tons of customisation options that are critical. Do I know where logs are stored NOPE, can I search for them manually, sure, but I get folders with tons of logs which one. Can I access report logs directly from AVIRA, nope.

So surprised yet AVIRA has become more and more expensive over the years......

So enough is enough - My licence is up for renewal in 30 days, I decided to take my business elsewhere.

Now I use BitDefender's AntiVirus Plus component, sure it still does not have all of the c ustomisation features old AVIRA did, it's more simplified interface, BUT it is much lighter than AVIRA, much better at stopping threats, and more effective at catching specific threats, and it has a cool feature - if a threat or suspicion is moved to quarantine, you can instantly add it to the exceptions.

My only complaint for now is the occasional pop-up recommendations to install other of their products, I should not get forced adverts if I am a paying customer. So for now this is what I will be using.

AVIRA is not alone though, Microsoft's own Defender also automatically moves or deletes threats......what ever happened to "ASKING" first ?

Also BitDefender unfortunately forces you to remove malwarebytes, though there are easy ways around that, you must remove it first, install bitdefender, turn off all monitoring, install malwarebytes, and add exceptions.

I use BItDefender and malwarebytes premium for optimal security now, paid user for both, they do not give me quite the amount of options I used to have with old avira, but it is still a far cry better than AVIRA.

Malwarebytes Premium does offer me all those options though.

Once upon a time you could buy one of those "small houses" for under $50k furnished

Guess not anymore - a regular 100 year old house is worth minimum $800k, so those "little houses" would be worth $200k, still cheaper than a condo, and probably more spacious

Nice topic indeed - I had mentioned it many times here before, Australia is known for the world's most largest and dangerous spiders, followed by Hawaii They have giant spiders, some with hairy legs - I have seen very scary photos people took inside their homes, of very large, human sized spider on their screen door, those did not seem like huntsman, but something else, but they were nasty.

The huntsman are not deadly, BUT they are VERY large, and they DO bite, and their BITE is extremely painful, EXTREMELY if you have them in your home or stumble upon them they can perceive it as a threat and BITE you, much like wasps - only a wasp's sting even a scorpion sting is NOTHING compared to that of the huntsman. Some of these spiders in Australia are also very FAST, they run, they JUMP (I kid you not) we do have these kind of spiders here, they are nowhere near as large, but they jump and they are so fast they are hard to catch.... Most house spiders in Canada are harmless though - they have fangs, but they are small and cannot possibly reach human skin even if the spider wanted to - we do have some venomous ones I THINK, like the black widow, but house spiders are generally safe - even the big ones like the daddy long legs, they are big but harmless.

So what is the Australian government going to do about all these spiders over there ?

In Hawaii they have nasty, very dangerous spiders too I forgot what those are called, and poisonous centipedes and other critters - I saw a video someone took in Hawaii, they were at a gas station pumping up and you could see the very large spiders walk on by very close to the car it's like a horror sight in a video game

Have you ever seen that film Jumanji, you know that large spider scene in the attic ? This is what Australia will become, well New York is now facing a rat problem, more rats than humans - in Australia it's spiders - There are rumours also that some of those spiders can FLY too and I kid you not it's true, look up flying spiders they do exist

valerie wrote: I bought a couple of Amazon Fire HD tablets. Those are for gifts.

DO these catch on fire ? You know what they say about Amazon branded products, they are fire hazards
The last "FIRE" I purchased from Amazon was not too impressed with - it was the 4K Firestick - I mean sure it is packed with features and liked the interface, but for the love of God, put more RAM on the thing - Amazon cheaped out big time on RAM and storage so much that you barely have any room to install apps - so that's my only complaint.

valerie wrote: Well I dunno. I don't really think about the guilt or not guilty because it is not me and I am not their judge. I just think if someone is sexually assaulted or molested or rape, they should go to the hospital immediately and report the entire incident truthfully as it happened. I don't think they should show up years later. I would be all for some type of statute of limitations.

WELL if they show up at a hospital it means they have to report it, and hospitals are under obligation to report it (I think?) - The reason people report it years later are many - mainly by fear, they feel dirty, or embarrassed or most importantly they fear repercussions by the offender - a lot of times people are sexually assaulted / raped by people they KNOW, so it makes matters worse. Once someone has the courage to finally report an individual, others usually follow. Another POSSIBLE reason is the money grab reason, when the person in question has a lot of money and people are out to get their share of the pie, though all complaints of that nature should be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated. The longer a person waits the more complicated it gets, because you still have to prove it, and a lot of the times these accusations DESTROY the careers of those accused, I'm pretty sure some of the claims are genuine, but there is a % of those likely frivolous - people may have a different definition of sex assault / rape, etc. What if a person consented or initiated the sex, and then LATER (after the fact, you know after the guy crossed the 'finish' linie) the victims decide it was assault and rape, who would a jury believe, the thing is statistically there is more sex assault and rape from men than from women, but can courts rely on assumptions and statistics ? How many of actual rape victims get justice ? How many men get away with it vs. how many are wrongfully accused ?

Nowadays guys have to be very careful and walk on egg shells - sometimes being too nice and friendly can be perceived as having an agenda or wanting to be in your pants - there are guys who are genuinely nice and have good intentions, maybe the 1-3% but still

Quote:
I mean IF it were me, I would go immediately to the hospital and have the cops called and relay everything that happen.

What if that person is living with you ? What if that person is a criminal ? What if that person is armed and threatened you of repercussion if you talk..........it's not as easy as just saying you will go right away and report it. Guns, knives and violence reign supreme right now so it's not all that simple.

Quote:
Of course, I realize there are instances such as in the workplace and a person does not want to lose their job so they don't report it. Well, who's fault is that? You made the decision to keep working there instead of reporting it. Therefore you should live with the decision you made. Not show up years later and cry foul.

Yes great point Valerie, this is like SOME victims of male abusers, why the HELL did they hook up with those kind of guys, they KNEW were trouble to begin with - but from the perspective of law, NOTHING justifies assault and rape, which is why this argument could never be used in a case. Sure the good guys are single, the bad guys have a large contact list

As far as Bill Cosby, I was really shocked and surprised about the allegations - who would expect that pudding guy would be an alleged pedophile and sex offender ? That's disgusting - and he worked with kids and was a father figure - Then you have the world's most famous game show host Bob Barker, he had allegations of sex assault by models he worked with, though I heard one of the cases was dismissed, but what about the rest, was it true ? was it not ? I would hate to think that any of the models were gold diggers - they had a very lucrative career and money, they didn't need to rely on any men - so yeah it's shocking to see some people in such positions to be like that. Some allegations of CEOs, those I am not surprised at all - One of them led a popular TV network and was vigorously defended by his wife - goes to show you how much some wives have blind trust in their husbands

tasman1 wrote: Just to jump back to TP topic .

So you can't bake I see, no problem, nothing to be ashamed of

Back to the TP topic indeed - so let's see now, who counts the plys, all I know is that I get the TP at Costco and that's it. No human should really to use that much TP with proper food intake - with the right food intake and fibre your dung would come out dry, not smearing and requiring a wipe. It's hard not to use TP when you have wet stools or diarrhea though - but having a bidet is a must, it should be in every household, you give your arse an initial wash, and you can use a bit of TP to dry or "retouches"

Quote:
Ops , something brown on my fingers , must go and wash , back latter

btw , me think to start using sandpaper , it is more stronger than 20 ply TP

Definitely a good conversation when you have guests over for dinner

Yeah the very same Prime Minister (JOKE) who made a tweet and from that moment on hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming in including 95% illegally - when Canada cannot even afford to do ANYTHING about its catastrophic healthcare, poverty, homelessness, unaffordable housing, non existent places to live, lack of enough apartments, affordable ones, etc, "sure anybody can come in we are welcoming you illegal or not" - What we need here is Trump and a nice big wall - People who want to come in should go through the same process, there should be a quota at least based on how much Canada can even help them, which it can't at the moment.

As far as the veteran news, well in a way if I was in his shoes I would wanna ******* die, who wants to live a life of misery, crippled - some people claim they can and lead a normal life, personally I wouldn't be able t, and in my opinion living that way is NOT a quality of life, in some cases it is better to die - BUT...........to be politically correct you cannot just suggest that to someone - that's like saying "Why don't you bloody kill yourself" - so one can say this matter was not handled professionally indeed - though ANYBODY should have the right to request aid to die, providing they meet certain criteria - nobody should die in reality, if Canada gave a shit about its own first, people with disabilities, ill, etc, and offered them proper help and resources, but no - it's no wonder people would rather die.

This very same PM who gave $2000 a month checks to people who did not need them.

valerie wrote: Bake a banana and be quiet.

Assuming he can even bake

I have a hunch, his wife does all the cooking.

tasman1 wrote: Me think they will settle on 2 million , both side will be very happy

No way Kraft will settle a frivolous lawsuit - this is a fraudulent lawsuit - even if it turns out that the claims and advertising should be improved, asking $ 5 MILLION is clearly unreasonable, so bloody what if it takes 15 minutes instead of 10, it's not worth $5 million - the Florida guy is NUTS - it will take him much longer to prepare it himself from scratch, but hey it's Florida, no surprise there, they want their cake and eat it, and spoon fed, hey let's sue Kraft because they make you work so hard, open microwave door, put cup in microwave, set timer, etc, that's too much work, people should get INSTANT mac & cheese out of the box, hot and everything They must be putting something in those foods to make people like that, I consider all these highly processed products like pure GARBAGE, I gag just thinking about it - when are people going to learn to grow their own food and eat non processed shit. I guess people fancy eating chemicals - as long as it tastes good, no problem

tasman1 wrote: As we all can see doing insane activities is best way to be in news , to be popular and maybe earn some extra cash

Do it , life is short , live life to the full , be popular , let world talk about you

Imagine how you will feel to be daily in news , in spotlight , well known , popular

WELL first, don't condone dangerous practices - do not try ANY of the mentioned stuff in the article, it's stupid and dangerous - Someone who inserts a 90 inch rope up his urethra needs only to do one thing - get a psychiatric evaluation STAT - because it is NOT normal behaviour - my willy is hurting just thinking of this stunt - either the guy was a sucker for pain or was heavily into S&M, to a whole different level

valerie wrote: I'm not sure I read the circumference of the rope but a catheter tube can go in rather easily. So I don't think the insertion would be that painful. In other words, the initial point of insertion is only a tad uncomfortable. Almost 9 feet of rope sitting in the bladder is what I'd think would be painful.
.

The urethra was meant for a one way passage of liquid and not insertion of objects - the area is EXTREMELY sensitive and can bruise VERY easily. People can have very painful urination on even the tiniest of stones (that rub against the wall) so you can imagine a ROPE rubbing against the urethra walls, YES, it should be VERY painful, unless the guy who did it was high as a kite, there is no way someone can pull this off (no pun intended ) whilst being clean and sober, no way. Have you ever inserted a catheter into some guy's urethra without sedation or anaesthesia before (by that I mean local, not general ) - unlike inserting stuff up your butt, the urethra is VERY sensitive, sure the initial point of entry can be very uncomfortable, and painful too, but getting the urethra bruised is certain - it's not uncommon for people to get swelling, difficulty urinating, blood, pain after such procedures, and sometimes even UTIs that follow - how the HELL did the guy enter a rope and get away with it - I'm pretty sure he did not sterelise the rope first all he did get was pain from the tangled rope pushing against the nerves of his bladder, that's it - he's super lucky.

I cannot believe that with today's technology and in 2022 medicine is still teaching doctors how to perform those highly invasive and sometimes dangerous procedures - It is clear that God meant for our body not to be "serviced", is it intentional or did he make a mistake or he ran out of 3D printer material Imagine if our body had service orifices - with covers, if you need to get into the bladder, just open the cover and insert instruments, no need for surgery, dangerous anaesthesia and invasive procedure, we would have different "service" areas through our body and a switch to activate a nerve block to cut pain receptors from areas of the body. There are exceptions though, these would be useful for normally non invasive procedure - it would be difficult to have service areas for pregnancies and C sections However, you can have service holes in your spine, so if you need spinal block or epidural, instead of poking a needle into your spine.

He shoulda thought of that

tasman1 wrote:

Darkstar2 wrote: Nice earnings - but I disagree, December should be good, at least for you - the last few months of the year used to be my best months - I think I came close to $200 here some years ago in November or December.

No .not in Australia , 70% of all Australians are on holiday from mid December to mid January , it is same every year , to hot to work
But I do not care , made very good this year

LOL too hot to work, bloody hell Australia has some of the most dangerous insects crawling all over the place, and they are bothered by a little hot weather, smh So if nearly 3/4 of Australians are on holiday, it means more surveys for you then, because it is likely too hot to complete surveys, unless they have good AC - I'm pretty sure of those 70% who are on holiday, only a small % are doing penny surveys online though

I'm sure in December you will earn at least $150 if not way more - when I was getting surveys here I was doing that effortlessly in December, actually November too. Once my membership to the VIP club was revoked that's another story

Nice earnings - but I disagree, December should be good, at least for you - the last few months of the year used to be my best months - I think I came close to $200 here some years ago in November or December.

Trust me, you would have been DQed either way - this was for sure a trap survey, probably used by routers to see if you purposely would say yes to unusual questions like this - you DQ'ed, but if you were tested on integrity, you surely passed, you wouldn't be bothered spending your entire day to earn pennies and possibly afford buying a $5 million car

tasman1 wrote: They killed my chance to buy new car valued over 5 million ..... this is what happen , real sad story , not joke

I got a survey here , 1 question , paying 1.00 dollar
Question was if I will buy new car next month that cost 5 million , answered no and bang DQ

They do not understand that they did kill my Chance to buy that car , here is proff
I have 1.00 in my saving , short just 4999999.00 dollars to buy 5 million dollar car .... if they allowed me that 1.00 dollar survey my chance to buy that car will be much higher , I will be short JUST 4999998.00 dollars

Very sad day , no new 5 million dollar car for me

AHAHAHAHAHAHA are you taking the piss or is this real ? Yeah like some random git taking 10-20 cents surveys on a GPT would buy a luxury car - what car even costs that much, f hell and who's the moron who will buy a $5m car anyway Good thing you answered NO, I bet you that you would still have DQ'ed had you answered yes, but a different type of DQ, quality_term and ban On what router was this monstrous rubbish ?

Oh and you think you heard the most silly BS, think again, I thought that a guy sticking a 90 inch rope up his urethra was extreme, well not quite as extreme as the following news.

Welcome to America, more precisely Florida, headquarters of silly lawsuits........basically in America you can SUE for anything, if your coffee is too hot, you can sue, if it's too cold, you can sue, if you don't like your server's shoes, you can sue

A lady in Florida decided one day that she needed to sue Kraft for $5 million alleging that Kraft claims that its mac & cheese bowl is READY in 3 minutes, yet the poor Florida woman claims it takes longer than that, they did not take into account, opening the bag, covers placing said chemical goop in bowl, opening microwave door, putting plate in tray closing tray, setting microwave, surely this takes more than 3 minutes - so Ms. Diva, can't handle spending an extra 2 minutes - too much, hey it's Florida innit - so she decides to sue for FIVE MILLION $ When the bloody hell are people going to learn how to cook fresh instead of buying that crap - oh no she couldn't POSSIBLY handle cooking fresh pasta.

So yeah, obviously Kraft claims this is a frivolous lawsuit (no shit ) and will vigorously defend these allegations.

Well I cannot imagine being a lawyer on either side and keep a straight face during that trial, let alone the judge - this should never EVER even be admissible as a trial, this is absolutely ABSURD.

Here is the link to this news for the skeptics:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-woman-sues-kraft-5m-saying-velveeta-shells-cheese-takes-longer-rcna59113

So I guess the maker of instant rice should be sued too, because the rice is not INSTANTLY ready out of the box ?

What are they putting in the water in Florida !

and cyber january when people get their CC statements and discover that in the end they spent more money than they should have, and return the stuff

The whole black / cyber days are marketing gimmicks - because people end up buying stuff they normally would NOT have bought in the first place, or stuff they do not NEED. For some, it's a great deal of course, your old door stopper snapped, and you need a new one, at 50% discount or grandma's vibrator fell and on the fritz, buy her a new one at 70% off............ or you have an old telly and want to upgrade to 4k, there are great deals .....

I saved at least $100 - I renewed my malwarebytes premium at 70% discount, and I purchased a bitdefender AV license at 70% off.