Ditto, clipboard manager, sphinx firewall and clover an explorer enhancement

[William Gaatjes]

I was talking to a colleague about the short comings of windows 10.
He came up with a few programs and i am trying them out now.
We talked about how windows 10 is turning into the unviable child on lifesupport because of an unhappy sexual encounter between a touch input programmer and a classic keyboard and mouse programmer. And both are always fighting over custody.
The microsoft office versions we use, for example do not support always the scroll button when scrolling through files in dialog boxes like save or open dialog windows.
Which programs has the focus is still weird and when you try to copy something and explorer fails to do so and ask for your choice with a dialog window, this window always stays hidden away while you wonder what is taking so long. An orange folder icon in the taksbar is the only notification.
Also, in all this time windows is still not able to understand that copying a text is different from copying a file that both can be done in parallel. Or copying an mp3 and copying a docx is different and can be in parallel. Also, holding mutiple items that have been CTRL-C can still not be done. CTRL-V
And do not forget the messy windows explorer has when multiple explorer windows are open.
Of course, this is not a fault of windows but from the windows programmers.



Well, this program solves alt least the limiting copying options.
http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net/
Also in the windows app.

This program enhances your explorer by adding your eplorer windows as tabs.
http://en.ejie.me/

And this program finally gives back what my old sygate firewall did for all the older windows versions.
The windows firewall is replaced by this program and it is very strict in what is allowed or not.
A proper firewall program from Sphinx soft. A free version is available but a few functions extra can be had for very cheap, it does the job.

http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/order.html

 

[William Gaatjes]

Tabexplorer is also an alternative to clover.

 

[RLGL]

I tried Ditto about a year ago. At that time total junk. Maybe it has been fixed by now. I might try it again.

 

[XavierMace]

A proper firewall program from Sphinx soft. A free version is available but a few functions extra can be had for very cheap, it does the job.

http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/order.html

A proper firewall is a standalone device.

 

[PliotronX]

A proper firewall is a standalone device.

You would think so, but a gateway firewall is not sufficient these days. A classical firewall drops traffic based on rules. This is great for implicit denial and keeping inbound junk out, but if you don't know the destination beforehand, outbound connections are completely unfettered. This is where a software firewall augments the overall security approach. You could then say that a UTM should take care of it, but every feature that you enable in them reduces throughput and spikes response times particularly when not configured with great care.

 

[RLGL]

I tried Ditto about a year ago. At that time total junk. Maybe it has been fixed by now. I might try it again

UPDATE
I am giving Ditto another try. I appears it has been completely revised. Some of the issues I had in the previous version are fixed. Seems it will work the way I expect it to.

 

[XavierMace]

You would think so, but a gateway firewall is not sufficient these days. A classical firewall drops traffic based on rules. This is great for implicit denial and keeping inbound junk out, but if you don't know the destination beforehand, outbound connections are completely unfettered. This is where a software firewall augments the overall security approach. You could then say that a UTM should take care of it, but every feature that you enable in them reduces throughput and spikes response times particularly when not configured with great care.

If you're running a UTM that can't manage IPS/IDS etc without destroying your throughput, get better hardware. Running a software firewall on endpoints instead doesn't change the effect additional security layers has on performance, it just moves where that impact is occurring.

 

[PliotronX]

If you're running a UTM that can't manage IPS/IDS etc without destroying your throughput, get better hardware. Running a software firewall on endpoints instead doesn't change the effect additional security layers has on performance, it just moves where that impact is occurring.

They all suffer a performance hit. We have a $2k ASA 5510x that can't handle 500Mbps with L7 features at work. How much cash are we supposed to throw SOHO UTMs?

 

[XavierMace]

I have no trouble getting 300Mbps through my Sophos with IPS/IDS on.

 

[John Connor]

I've never messed with 10, and from reading about its asinine way of doing things, I won't be upgrading anytime soon. But after reading this, OMG! Bad enough one has to run something like Shutup 10. Now this just for a proper Explorer? Good greif!

 

[XavierMace]

I've never messed with 10, and from reading about its asinine way of doing things, I won't be upgrading anytime soon. But after reading this, OMG! Bad enough one has to run something like Shutup 10. Now this just for a proper Explorer? Good greif!

Or you learn to adapt and not bother with piling on loads of apps to try to make it look/run like older versions of Windows.

 

[John Connor]

F! Learn to adapt.... That's what every single person has told me on countless forums. No, I don't need to "learn to adapt" anything. They just need to make a OS that works!

 

[XavierMace]

It works just fine. You just don't like how it works.

 

[John Connor]

HAHAHA!!!