New
#11
It will be interesting to see the IPCONFIG and the ping info - so post the everything that you can gather during your next outage.
The default timeout for the Ping utility is 4 seconds. However, a ping is a low priority bit of network traffic. If things get really busy, some network equipment just forgo responding to pings. I usually see less than 1 millisecond "ping times" to my router and around 4 to 8 milliseconds to equipment that is close* to me on the Internet.
*according to tracert
Sure people try to get find exploits for IE. That will let them into business related computers. But I like the security layers that IE uses. Maybe that is because I understand a little bit about it. I don't understand as much about how Chrome/Firefox defend against exploits. Add to that, IE will do things that no other browser will do** - but I'm probably the only forum member that uses those specific things
**
1) operating system shortcuts on the favorites bar
2) full operating system context menus on those shortcuts on the favorites bar
3) favorites that are files - not buried inside of databases
Some people avoid Chrome because of privacy concerns (e.g. Google gathering info on you). While others claim that Chrome is more secure than other browsers because of how well Google pays the people that find flaws: Google Offers 'Infinity Million Dollar' Reward For Finding Program Flaws
If you use Firefox, then it is probably the 32bit version. Mozilla should release a 64bit version soon. There can be a bit more security in 64bit browsers that run on computers with more than 4GB of RAM. It takes malware slightly longer to locate various blocks of RAM that are being used to run a 64bit browser. Hopefully, that extra time lets antivirus apps stop the malware.
I see that your computer has 2GB of RAM and a 64bit operating system. You would have been better off with 32bit operating system with that tiny amount of RAM. Pretty much every little part of a 64bit OS uses a bit more RAM than a 32 bit OS does. It all adds up to give you less RAM for programs.
If you have not ditched McAfee yet, do so now. MSE (linked to earlier) will work better for you with so little RAM.
I use IE11 64bit for specific websites, Pale Moon 64bit (based on Firefox) for forums and 32bit Chrome/Flash for streaming media. All three are open at the moment. I don't use Flash in IE or Pale Moon. There are too many flaws in Adobe's Flash, Adobe's PDF reader and Oracle's Java to have them installed for general browsing. At least with Chrome, its built in Pepper Flash is automatically/silently updated. I'm still looking into 64bit Chrome.