Going from Dial-up to WIFI

Hello people,

Yesterday, I finally gave up my dial-up connection. I gave up after thirty years of satisfactory internet for my needs.

So yesterday, the man attached a wifi modem/router combination to my relatively ancient HP desktop running Windows 7. (I know, Windows 7) !

But I'm a fairly old fellow, and have lost a number of my really favorite XP programs just coming over to this Windows 7. I think I would lose all of them (like Word 2010 and Powerpoint) if I upgraded to Windows 10.

My Trainz and other favorite programs are on an always offline XP computer.

I would like to hear your ideas to help me get a handle on how to protect myself with this "always on and fast" situation.

About the always on .. I have submitted the network name and password. This, I was told sort of protects against neighbors using my computer. I don't know if the Internet can see or get to my computer while I am not using a browser. That is my question number 1 ...

Thanks for any help on this. Bob P.
 
I'd suggest connecting your modem/router to a second router probably I'd go with ASUS then running your wifi from there. The reason is the firewall on the ASUS is probably better than the ISP supplied one and second will not be using the default usirid and password that comes with the ISP supplied router. Note this is different to the password you use to connect to the router.

newegg.com have reasonable prices. Linksys and TP-link are fine as well. I'd stay with ones that are $49 and above. A reasonable choice would be one that newegg.com has the ASUS RT-AC1200GE AC1200 which is on sale today.

Cheerio John
 
First, make sure you have an adequate anti-virus program installed on your PC, if you don't already. Be aware that the anti-virus vendors may not support Windows 7 in the nearer future, just as they have dropped XP support. Your ISP-provided modem should have a firewall built in, and your ISP may make a quality anti-virus program available.

You can also download and install Malwarebytes, to double-check your anti-virus. The paid version works as an anti-virus itself, you might want to consider that.

To reassure you, your Office 2010 programs will work just fine on Windows 10 when the time comes. Microsquish has dropped help support for it but it still does the job. Windows 10 also includes Defender, a built-in anti-virus that is working just fine for me. I had Norton but dropped it because of Symantec's marketing policies.

I have Trainz 2009, 2010, 12 and T:ANE running on Windows 10, and they run well. I run the old MSTS sessions in Open Rails too.

Yes, if you turned the WiFi broadcast ID off, as I think you meant, that will help. And there are no viruses that will bridge your "air gap" unless you assist them by transporting them over on a disc or stick.
 
I've always used Windows 7 and never had any problems running Trainz. My wife installed Windows 10 on her desktop, so I installed T:ANE on it to see if it was any better,... it was worse! Even though on both computers we had the same NVIDIA card, so I uninstalled T:ANE from her computer. Stick with Windows 7/
Cheers,
Roy
 
First, make sure you have an adequate anti-virus program installed on your PC, if you don't already. Be aware that the anti-virus vendors may not support Windows 7 in the nearer future, just as they have dropped XP support. Your ISP-provided modem should have a firewall built in, and your ISP may make a quality anti-virus program available.

You can also download and install Malwarebytes, to double-check your anti-virus. The paid version works as an anti-virus itself, you might want to consider that.

To reassure you, your Office 2010 programs will work just fine on Windows 10 when the time comes. Microsquish has dropped help support for it but it still does the job. Windows 10 also includes Defender, a built-in anti-virus that is working just fine for me. I had Norton but dropped it because of Symantec's marketing policies.

I have Trainz 2009, 2010, 12 and T:ANE running on Windows 10, and they run well. I run the old MSTS sessions in Open Rails too.

Yes, if you turned the WiFi broadcast ID off, as I think you meant, that will help. And there are no viruses that will bridge your "air gap" unless you assist them by transporting them over on a disc or stick.


Normally ISP provided firewalls are not the most robust. Companies such as ASUS update their routers from time to time with updated software that reduces the malware risk and if you are running windows 7 you want all the protection you can get. Generally speaking the ISP modems do not get upgrades.

Third party antivirus software is sometimes the vector for installing malware. Generally speaking it gives more false positives than it is worth. The classic was one that quarantined a windows system file. The corrected it within eight hours but by that time a few thousand PCS needed windows reinstalling.

Use Chrome to browse the web. It's about the most secure browser there is for windows 7.

The problem with windows 7 is windows 10 updates. Naughty people look at what has been patched and often the same vulnerability occurs in earlier versions of windows such as win 7. Makes it dead easy to write malware that will infect win 7. The most safest approach is win 10, defender and keep it up to date.

What you can do is use win 7 backup to create a system image and a recovery disk.

Then upgrade to win10. It should still be free if you look on the web on how to do it. If your software won't run on Win 10 and I strongly suspect it will then you can reinstall windows 7. There are compatibility modes within win 10 to run older software. The only problem I had is one of the win 10 updates meant that my HP scanjet 4670 no longer had a driver that worked which was a nuisance as it is kinder to books when scanning.

Cheerio John
 
Hello Fellows and Gals (If it applies)

I think I am a very low level of expertise on this. So you should be aware of where I am coming from, Thanks!

On the idea of connecting a second modem/router, this is way beyond where I am right now. Right now, I have gone from dial-up to Wi-Fi, and I am suddenly stressed out about probably small things, like on your computers do the lights on your modems usually blink all the time, even when your computer is turned off?

Number two concern is that Norton Security Online (provided by the ISP) (which I downloaded and installed, and had working) will be no longer available as of Jan. 1, 2021. Number three, this computer (which was given to me had Malwarebytes Free from a couple of years ago, which I tried and it seemed to be updated I scanned the "important files" with this and it came up clean. I also scanned with the Norton Security Online and it came up clean.

Malwarebytes has seemed to be a good program. I have used it at the public libraries I go to. I will consider the paid version depending on price. (my budget has always been tight and has been getting even tighter lately).

I would like to know what you guys are using to protect your computers online. This computer had Avast on it but I took it off, fearing it would try to go online, which would give my dial-up a total hernia!

Also I do have the longtime habit of staying away from shady sounding websites and mainly going with some major sites which seemed to load fairly fast on dial-up.

Thanks again to you all for your input on this. Back to you all. Bob P.
 
Hello to John, Your last message came on when I just posted. I had these ideas to too about making an image, and about buying an external drive. I also thought about turning some services off like I did with Windows XP , mainly remote access. I'll be back later ....
 
I wouldn't worry about the blinking lights on your modem. It just means that it is on and there is a connection. As far as security, I use just the built in Windows setup for anti virus and firewall, I take all the updates when they come out, with the addition of Spybot S&D. I've never had any problems. I use common sense when online and don't go poking my nose where it doesn't belong.
 
Before changing routers or anything you can check how effective your firewall is at https://www.grc.com/shieldsup.

Word 2010 was compatible with Win10 according to the Compatibility Centre before Microsoft removed it!

Not supported doesn't necessarily mean won't work, just usually means there won't be any security updates.
 
Malwarebytes has seemed to be a good program. I have used it at the public libraries I go to. I will consider the paid version depending on price. (my budget has always been tight and has been getting even tighter lately).

On my installation, Malwarebytes doesn't seem to have a freeware version any longer. They have a trial, but it ends, of course.
 
OK. I'm taking note of all your experiences. It looks like "blinking lights" might not be something to worry about. I still believe that creating an image is a great idea from the past. I used to do it on my XP computer with Drive Image 5, I know that Windows 7 is supposed to be able to also do it!

I just went to the GRC website (It's a lot more complicated than it used to be) But I used to check my XP firewall there a lot.

Today, it told me that my inernet connection has no Reverse Dns, "Which is good". And then I tried the UPnp Exposure test and it did not respond (which they respond is good news).

Defender, I suppose does not work well on my machine. "built in Windows setup for anti virus and firewall" ?? Could I set the Firewall to be stronger)? that sounds like a possibility.

I think also that my ISP possibly has a firewall going. Like people here have said, it might not be the greatest!!

Thanks to all, I'll be back. Robert P.
 
Also I do have the longtime habit of staying away from shady sounding websites and mainly going with some major sites which seemed to load fairly fast on dial-up.

Thanks again to you all for your input on this. Back to you all. Bob P.

The major vector for picking up infections these days is through web sites but those little adverts you see are space that is rented out. Sometimes these can go through a dozen ad agencies until no one really knows who is legit or not. So if your web site has adverts it is suspect. I just happen to be paranoid after working at the corporate level on the security side although the most inventive were the computer science students when I worked at a university. We'd regularly go through their files and the hard disks would in inadvertently lose a few suspect ones.

Most here will be using Win 10 and Microsoft defender.

Cheerio John
 
One slight advantage with dial-up is that you seldom see ads! Luckily the important parts load in first and the ads load in last.
I never saw ads on my email service, but now, I get to see them all !!

Very Wonderful !!! :confused:
 
One slight advantage with dial-up is that you seldom see ads! Luckily the important parts load in first and the ads load in last.
I never saw ads on my email service, but now, I get to see them all !!

Very Wonderful !!! :confused:

If you search for MVP Hosts, and read what that does on their website, you will be able to filter out a majority of ads by using their HOSTS file that is configured to do this.
 
One slight advantage with dial-up is that you seldom see ads! Luckily the important parts load in first and the ads load in last.
I never saw ads on my email service, but now, I get to see them all !!

Very Wonderful !!! :confused:

Thunderbird or Postbox might be worth looking at. They work off line and connect to pick up and send mail direct to the servers so no ads.

Cheerio John
 
No, I don't mind the ads... I mind the ads that track me, like I looked at some stuff on Ebay once, and the items showed up on the Google search page. I hate that!

I have found that there is Xfinity Advanced Security available to me. It seems to work with their modems and I think there is sort of a blacklist of scary sites. Went to install it, it gave me a screen saying please upgrade your browser. My Firefox is 51.0, which is pretty old. I did a search on how to save my cookies and bookmarks in the upgrade and got methods to do it copying to folders etc.

Does anybody know if Firefox cookies and bookmarks are automatically saved in a normal upgrade? If not, there are some manual ways to do it, but it looks like some work. Thanks.
 
No, I don't mind the ads... I mind the ads that track me, like I looked at some stuff on Ebay once, and the items showed up on the Google search page. I hate that!

I have found that there is Xfinity Advanced Security available to me. It seems to work with their modems and I think there is sort of a blacklist of scary sites. Went to install it, it gave me a screen saying please upgrade your browser. My Firefox is 51.0, which is pretty old. I did a search on how to save my cookies and bookmarks in the upgrade and got methods to do it copying to folders etc.

Does anybody know if Firefox cookies and bookmarks are automatically saved in a normal upgrade? If not, there are some manual ways to do it, but it looks like some work. Thanks.

They are held in a file so they should be fine and can be imported into other browsers so you should be fine.

Cheerio John
 
Hi,
Welcome to 2020!
We use Trend Micro ( licence covers 5 devices, including android, Win etc).
Tane and TS19 are ok with Win 10 - remember to exclude the program folders and the data files (default is in user folder) from the virus checker - otherwise you'll kill the fps!

Have a good 2021!

Colin
 
Thunderbird or Postbox might be worth looking at. They work off line and connect to pick up and send mail direct to the servers so no ads.

Cheerio John

I'll second you on Thunderbird. The e-mail providers I use all have on-line instructions on how to connect it to their mail systems.

Malwarebytes downloads as a free trial but if you don't opt in, it will continue to work as a manual scanner rather than automatic or scheduled.

Win 10 has bunches of included "apps" which you can remove in Settings, which makes Win 10 work faster and clears some disc space. When (if) you go to set Win 10 up, avoid letting MS suck you in to their sign-on system. You have to hunt for the prompts and links that let you set it up as a stand-alone, but it's more secure to do that.

The double-router route sounds unnecessarily complex to me. The cable modem capabilities depend on what your ISP gives you. I'm on Comcast/Xfinity and they provide a name-brand router with their own markings, update it regularly and replace it when it gets too old.

Oh, and MSTS actually does run on Win10, just not very well. With Open Rails there are occasional issues with specific third-party sessions, but most run just fine.

Conclusion: don't be afraid of Windows 10, learn to manage it.

(I got my first home computer in 1979, by the way.)

:B~)
 
Thanks RHK for the mention of Thunderbird, I have used it way back when... My email interface has a trimmed down interface they offer for slow connections. Luckily so far it is still working with WIFI. Only a small column on the right with smaller ads

Well , I better do Some things to get all this stuff sorted out.

I did lookup exactly where Firefox keeps its' profiles.(not sure about cookies). It seems to be in one of those app data% areas that I can't find. Any way, I only need to upgrade Firefox if I want to use my ISP's blocking tool. They have links to download Chrome (I ain't gonna do it) and that new Microsoft browser whose name I now forget.

I also went out shopping to a nearby town. Walmart had anti viruses, various brands, no Trend there. Made my head spin. Different brands claim that they do this and that very well.

Went to Staples, Trend not there. They had some Norton360 Deluxe's there, on sale until Jan.2. I said to heck with all this searching. For 1 year, a terrific low price. And they claim real-time protection. Secure VPN (I have read some tricky things about VPN).

It made me feel good. Bought it.
 
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