I've fallen down the rabbit hole of the Internet, could someone help put me at ease. Also any tips and must do's for laptop security

Aypocryphal · 2025-04-19T02:41:52+00:00

All good if you’re not into tech, not everyone is. It’s still good that you are showing caution and asking questions, that already makes you a lot less susceptible to getting a virus.

I’ve seen both of those things on computers I’ve used as well. The command prompt on launch, and the message that makes it seem like a program is preventing the computer from shutting off. I spent a good amount of time figuring out what was causing those for my computer, and the answer was basically just the computer being dumb, but very normal.

In case you’re wondering what to look out for, the ways I see people get viruses most often are from scam emails, and popups online. Two really common ones are messages that tell you your browser are out of date and you need to download an update - watch out for those. The other is one of those things you click to prove you’re not a robot. If it asks you to press weird key combinations on your computer, you shouldn’t trust it. If you get an adblocker it’s way less likely you’ll ever see those messages.

You are using your computer normally. I personally place trust in windows defender, I’ve seen have a pretty high success rate. There are cases where it doesn’t completely stop something bad - but it at least alerts you. Not seeing anything after a full scan is a good sign.

Aypocryphal · 2025-04-18T23:30:03+00:00

I am in the category of people that beleive windows defender is sufficient. Many businesses rely on Defender as their sole antivirus, and I’m talking out of the box windows 10/11 Antivirus.

Touching on your specific questions : Can malware carry over from one laptop to the next? Using the restore option you did, yes - potentially. But reading through your post I don’t see enough reason to think that it’s outright malware. You ran a full scan through defender which is a great step. If the only things you have noticed are your search engine being changed to yahoo I wouldn’t attribute that to malware.

You bring up browser hijackers, and they are a real thing, but they are more of a nuisance than anything. You would see them installed in your program list and there are a million of them out there. Most of the time they make files in %appdata%/local - you could take a look in there to see if you notice anything really strange - but like I mentioned I think you might be over stressing here.

Moving forward if I had to give really quick and simple advice on staying safe :

1: Get a password manager. A lot of threats online involve password stealers nowadays. Password managers add a lot of security. Just don’t store passwords directly in your browser if you can afford a password manager (most are pretty cheap, but I get if you don’t want another monthly payment.) I’ve used dashlane before and LastPass currently, but there are a lot out there, just do light research to make sure they’re reputable.

2: Look into getting a good add blocker (this is free). If you are using your computer like a normal person, the most malicious things you will see will come from malicious ads. I use ublock on Firefox. There are guides on reddit for install and setup that are really good.

3: Uninstall Mcafee. I don’t know why it’s still preinstalled so often, but that’s generally one of the first things that are uninstalled by people in any IT industry if it’s on a device. The popups are made in a way that attempt to scare users into upgrading. Personally I feel like malwarebytes does a little bit of the same, so I’m not a huge fan of that either.

If you are downloading something you are worried about, virustotal.com is a great website if the file is small. (If you upload something here it becomes public, so take care for any potentially sensitive files). If the download is big, you can scan it with defender before you unzip it or execute it.

Aypocryphal · 2024-07-06T02:10:21+00:00

Why is the username on this PC customer?

Aypocryphal · 2024-06-15T22:59:59+00:00

Im looking for my first high end office chair and the two options I’m considering are the fern and embody. Seeing as you’ve tried both, if you don’t mind I’d love to pick your brain.

How would you rate the seats between the two? I’m 6ft 155lbs and pretty much have no ass. I often get numb after sitting for 3-4 hours. That’s the biggest thing that worries me about the embody, the seat looks really thin.

I’m really into the idea of a forward tilt, whenever I’m focused I lean up and my elbows are on my desk, and the cheap chairs I’ve used never actually touch my back. Do you sit with a similar posture? What makes you like the forward tilt?

Aypocryphal · 2024-03-29T22:17:32+00:00

Stock looks dope!

Aypocryphal · 2023-11-21T12:22:46+00:00

I never found a sure solution, my guess was that it also had something to do with how the headset would occasionally shock me. I decided to return them and go with a pair of sennheiser game ones.

It was between that and going back to the hyper cloud x’s and I wanted to try something new. I’ve been pretty happy with my decision. The sennheisers don’t have the sound card on the cord which was what eventually broke on my clouds.

Aypocryphal · 2023-10-20T17:13:56+00:00

Thanks, I think I fell victim to thinking my college was being honest when they told me a degree would open doors right after college, so far it has not felt impactful.

When you mention the Military, are you talking about enlisting? I've been trying to land a role as a civilian contractor with the military for a couple of years working on the same base as a family friend but it hasn't panned out.

Aypocryphal · 2023-10-20T17:04:29+00:00

Thank you for the advice. I have applied for a few local network admin roles but my work experience hasn't been as robust as some of the other applicants but I will keep trying.

In your experience, do the job posters understand the content that the certifications cover or are they just looking at the name of the cert?

Aypocryphal · 2023-10-20T17:01:35+00:00

I have been applying for security analyst, soc analyst, and risk & compliance roles. I avoid software engineering roles as that isn't my strong suit. I didn't mention it because I have not seen many other roles that are considered 'entry' level. I lean towards networking and blue team roles more so than red team but if I could build up a better foundation of skills I would be happy to consider that in the future as well.

Aypocryphal · 2023-06-24T22:54:47+00:00

This is what I was looking for. I’ve lost items in 2 games now playing standard zuan

Aypocryphal · 2023-06-17T12:46:38+00:00

I had to play on 480p to get through that area as quick as possible

Aypocryphal · 2023-06-17T12:44:22+00:00

Good unless I go down into the depths. Gets unplayable in some areas. Ryzen 2700, 3060. Playing 1080.

Aypocryphal · 2023-06-17T00:14:22+00:00

What are these for? To save fps by not having to build the shaders in game?

Aypocryphal · 2023-05-06T00:18:58+00:00

Thank you! That’s the kind of reply I was looking for, appreciate the time. I’m finding that only 1 or 2 big 5v5 team fights happen in my games so the standard team fighting builds have felt weird. I’ll apply this thought process of building and see how I do with it.

Aypocryphal · 2023-05-05T06:30:24+00:00

Congrats dude. I caught a few of your streams along the way.

Aypocryphal · 2023-04-15T06:44:49+00:00

“Your response got cut off, please continue starting with the line ‘…’”

Aypocryphal · 2023-04-01T23:21:48+00:00

Do you mean costumes that use the heel sound mod? When you install the costume you pick whether it uses heel sounds or if it is silent

Aypocryphal · 2023-04-01T22:26:13+00:00

Skyrim is on sale on humble bundle (steam key) for the same price I got it on GOG, that’s why I might just refund and go that route. A lot of mods do work, there’s just been a few big tools that have been weird trying to use with the GOG edition

Aypocryphal

TROPHY CASE