Rick's Daily Tips

Scam alert: Infections of ‘Password Stealing Malware’ are up 60% so far in 2019!

Posted on July 25, 2019

Security firm Kaspersky (the makers of Kaspersky Antivirus products) has just reported that the number of computers infected with Password Stealing Malware was up 60% during the first half 2019.

The vast majority of those infections involve Azorult, an extremely dangerous trojan-type virus that hackers use to steal a wide variety of user files and personal data (including passwords).

Kaspersky also reported that scans with Kaspersky Antivirus found Password Stealing Malware infections on 25% of all computers that are running the software.

[Read more…]

Clean out and speed up your Android device with CCleaner for Android

Posted on July 24, 2019

CCleaner has been the preferred system cleanup utility for millions of PC and Mac users for quite some time.

Now you can get many of the same benefits of the PC and Mac versions of CCleaner on your Android phone or tablet.

CCleaner for Android will clean the junk out of your device and make it run faster and with fewer hang-ups and glitches. I’ve been using it on my phones and tablet for a while now, and I love it.

Here are a few of the ways CCleaner for Android can help optimize and speed up your Android device: [Read more…]

Heads-Up, Bloggers: The next version of Firefox will drop the final hammer on your blog if it’s still unencrypted.

Posted on July 19, 2019

Do you write a blog that’s still serving its pages to your visitors’ web browsers in a non-secure (i.e. unencrypted) state?

If you’re not sure, it’s very easy to find out. Simply visit your blog with any web browser and look that the URL in the address bar.

If the URL starts with https:// instead of https:// that means your blog is not being served to your visitors’ browsers in encrypted format.

If that turns out to be the case, your blog’s traffic is likely to drop to pretty close to zero after Mozilla releases the Firefox 70 update in October.

[Read more…]

Have you ever used FaceApp? If so, its Russian creators now own your photos and personal info.

Posted on July 18, 2019

Have you ever used the ultra-popular FaceApp “digital aging” app that’s taking the world by storm right now?

If so, there’s something you should know…

The Terms of Use (TOS) you agreed to when you first installed FaceApp gave its Russian creators the right to download, alter and publish any photos you have stored on your device.

What’s more, it can also use your phone’s camera to take photos (and potentially video) all on its own.

[Read more…]

Review: Inateck 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch SSD Mounting Bracket Adapter kit

Posted on July 17, 2019

Regular readers of this blog know I’m always talking about how replacing a computer’s hard drive with an SSD provides more “bang for the buck” than just about any other hardware upgrade you can make.

The only other upgrade that even comes close is a RAM upgrade, and that’s only true if the machine is running low on RAM in the first place.

Luckily, swapping out the hard drive for an SSD in most laptops is a breeze. Since both drives are typically 2.5 inch drives it’s literally as easy as removing the hard drive and installing the SSD in its place. A fast and easy process.

However, that isn’t the case with most desktop PCs. [Read more…]