OT: Computer Problems

various AV products intercept your webtraffic, so they can look at the encrypted traffic, to do that they have to get your PC to trust a different certificate, they do that in a way that doesn't include firefox, there are ways to import their cert into fixrefox, so it will trust the AV.

I would uninstall, I've used only microsoft defender for several years.

Are you saying that everything was hunky dory until you uninstalled Kapersky VPN?

If so, is it possible that this caused some shared resource - on which Firefox, etc. depend - to be deleted?

Have you tried re-installing/repairing Firefox?

It is possible that the VPN had various filter driver layers installed into the IP stack, and one of those was not removed correctly.

I think in the first instance I would try:

Open a command prompt with admin privileges

First do the winsock reset:

netsh winsock reset

Then reset the IP configuration:

netsh int ip reset

Finally restart your computer, and see if that fixes the problem.

If you want to see what changes were made, then before you do the first bit:

netsh winsock show catalog > before.txt

and after completing the procedure:

netsh winsock show catalog > after.txt

Now compare the two text files.

If the above does not fix it then try the following in an admin command prompt :

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

SFC /scannow

MS did not provide anything with Win 3.1. You had to wait until XP to get *some* protection (it was only an anti spyware package at this point). Microsoft security essentials added full AV protection as well but that was into the Vista / Win 7 era. Win XP shipped without even having a firewall.

Dump windows 10 and install linux Mint

That must have been what I used then, it was 30 years ago!

AFAICR without checking - awkward ATM because my XP laptop is closed with a scanner on top of it and piles of old family letters on my desk which I don't want to disturb - XP had a firewall, 2k did not.

XP's firewall got seriously beefed up with SP2

If you can trace it to uninstalling the vpn, then one assumes you have tried putting it back. The problems usually revolve around the registry not being put back as it was, and/or the programs updated or installed since the original vpn was installed now point to a void since they remember where they pointed. In the end it could be that windows would need to be completely removed including all the software after backing up anything at all you need of course, then reinstall windows, check that edge behaves, then gradually re install software. I'm not at all sure if forte agent can be installed in the latest builds of Windows though. I guess you could try a dual boot and see if the other system will work before burning the first install, but that very much depends on the size of the drive and if you are allowed to move the partition without trashing the existing system. Brian

XP got an included firewall later after release, but that was included in one of the service packs. The original release did not include one.

That got interesting in the era of worms like blaster, that spread by exploiting RPC mechanisms, and could infect a machine without any user interaction once it was connected to the internet[1].

Hence to get online safely you had to install AV software / firewall from CD etc before making a dialup connection, otherwise you risked infection during the time it took to make a connection to download something like commodo or zonealarm and get it installed.

They provided a DOS and Win AV with MSDOS 6.2 (and possibly earlier). Win 3 ran on top of DOS.

"Microsoft Anti-Virus for Windows (c) 1992-1993 By Central Point Software Inc."

Looking at the list of what it detected, they appear to be the typical DOS and boot sector viruses that got passed around on floppy disks. No network bourne malware to speak of for DOS/Win in those days. 1993 was the year the WWW really got going for the general public.

Even early consumer broadband used a USB connected Broadband Modem and not a router - so just as risky and with a faster connection for them to exploit.

I went from 3.1 to NT4 workstation in 1997, as it appeared to be more stable and secure than 95. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that NT4 did not support USB. I changed to XP as soon as that came out in 2001.

Thanks very much for the advice John. I tried all of your suggestions. They made a few tweaks, but didn't solve the problem. As my Kaspersky licence is about to run out, I uninstalled it completely, and all now appears well.

Right now I will see how Windows security performs, PC Pro seems to think it can be a bit of a pain, so we will have to see.

Chris

In my book XP (SP2 or more) was probably the best version almost bar none. The exception would have been 98SE if I still needed DOS facilities such as being able to program amateur/mobile radios with a serial cable.

Yes it does.

i.e. it was enabled by default, as it hadn't been until then.