'No Stupid Questions' General -

[Samson Pumpkin Jr.]

bros, my memory is routinely at 80%, what am I doing wrong?

 

[Least Concern]

bros, my memory is routinely at 80%, what am I doing wrong?

Probably nothing. With modern operating systems, it's normal to use as much of your memory as possible and swap out old data for new as it's needed. Older operating systems would more simply allocate some RAM when you open a program or document and then deallocate it when you close it, but that's not how things work anymore.

Where you need to be concerned is when your computer actually completely freezes for a while when you switch programs or open new documents. That might be your system being so overwhelmed with how much data it has to swap in and out that it can't keep up the appearance of still being responsive in real-time. That's when you need to start checking for runaway processes eating up too much memory.

For more information, try entering "virtual memory" in a world wide web search engine such as AltaVista or Excite.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

bros, my memory is routinely at 80%, what am I doing wrong?

Probably this:

Probably nothing. With modern operating systems, it's normal to use as much of your memory as possible and swap out old data for new as it's needed. Older operating systems would more simply allocate some RAM when you open a program or document and then deallocate it when you close it, but that's not how things work anymore.

Where you need to be concerned is when your computer actually completely freezes for a while when you switch programs or open new documents. That might be your system being so overwhelmed with how much data it has to swap in and out that it can't keep up the appearance of still being responsive in real-time. That's when you need to start checking for runaway processes eating up too much memory.

For more information, try entering "virtual memory" in a world wide web search engine such as AltaVista or Excite.

But, uh, just in case: what are you using - desktop or laptop - and how much and which type of RAM do you have?

 

[Samson Pumpkin Jr.]

Probably this:

But, uh, just in case: what are you using - desktop or laptop - and how much and which type of RAM do you have?

desktop. I have 8 giga bytes
it's also worth mentioning that this computer is 5 years old at this point, but I have seen little decline in quality. recently it has gotten a little slower.

 

[Mal0]

desktop. I have 8 giga bytes
it's also worth mentioning that this computer is 5 years old at this point, but I have seen little decline in quality. recently it has gotten a little slower.

That just happens in general. Sometimes a fresh install of windows will help clear junk files or unused apps.

If the ram is that much of an issue, perhaps use task manager to see what's eating up the memory. Click on the memory tab on task manager to see what's eating up the most of your memory.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

desktop. I have 8 giga bytes
it's also worth mentioning that this computer is 5 years old at this point, but I have seen little decline in quality. recently it has gotten a little slower.

Aside from this:

That just happens in general. Sometimes a fresh install of windows will help clear junk files or unused apps.

If the ram is that much of an issue, perhaps use task manager to see what's eating up the memory. Click on the memory tab on task manager to see what's eating up the most of your memory.

If there's no more anomalous behaviour - higher than average CPU/HDD/SSD usage, weird network activity - it's definitely not a virus, just Windows "getting tired".
Keep in mind most browsers have massive memory leaks, both Chrome and Firefox are shoddy software.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Aside from this:

If there's no more anomalous behaviour - higher than average CPU/HDD/SSD usage, weird network activity - it's definitely not a virus, just Windows "getting tired".
Keep in mind most browsers have massive memory leaks, both Chrome and Firefox are shoddy software.

Browsers are usually the culprit. Chrome with a bunch of youtube tabs takes up a ton of memory and I have noticed that Firefox occasionally freaks out and is suddenly taking up 20GB of memory.

Hitting around 87% memory utilization in Windows can be pretty bad, that's around the time it starts panic swapping memory to the pagefile.

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

I have a tinfoil question about Windows. It's happened enough to me that I wonder if it's not just in my head, but searching for it online is impossible.

Has anyone noticed that if you delay updates with Windows enough, your computer starts losing functionality and things randomly stop working?

Like right now, my tablet keyboard is not working. Pretty sure it won't again til I update Windows. Thus has happened before, though with different issues.

The paranoid artist in me thinks it's purposeful to force the user to install the update. Of course if you search anything with "Windows" and "update" you get the usual bullshit.

So am I imagining this, or is it a thing?

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

Does anyone happen to know if there's a decent modern windows equivalent to Thinstall/Thinapp? I'm looking specifically for registry and filesystem isolation rather than IPC blocking or firewalling so I can make portable versions of the few older tools I use regularly that don't have portable mode support,

I have a tinfoil question about Windows. It's happened enough to me that I wonder if it's not just in my head, but searching for it online is impossible.

Has anyone noticed that if you delay updates with Windows enough, your computer starts losing functionality and things randomly stop working?

Like right now, my tablet keyboard is not working. Pretty sure it won't again til I update Windows. Thus has happened before, though with different issues.

The paranoid artist in me thinks it's purposeful to force the user to install the update. Of course if you search anything with "Windows" and "update" you get the usual bullshit.

So am I imagining this, or is it a thing?

I've seen this as well but usually with NVIDIA drivers rather than windows updates. It makes me think there's some confusion about order of operations causing driver resets/reinstalls to be deferred because they think there's a task running already which in reality is the delayed update.

On a similar note, are Windows 10's USB3 drivers just ass or is it me being unlucky on three computers in a row across multiple chipsets? Shit just disconnects at random for no reason after a couple hours of boot time (and it's not selective suspend, which is disabled). The devices are random and even super simple things like usb/serial adapters and mice get hit by it. Putting them on a usb2 hub fixes everything but sucks for external media or anything that might fail catastrophically if disconnected while active.

 

[Kosher Dill]

On a similar note, are Windows 10's USB3 drivers just ass or is it me being unlucky on three computers in a row across multiple chipsets? Shit just disconnects at random for no reason after a couple hours of boot time (and it's not selective suspend, which is disabled). The devices are random and even super simple things like usb/serial adapters and mice get hit by it. Putting them on a usb2 hub fixes everything

I recently learned that USB3 interferes with the 2.4GHz band, including some flavors of wi-fi and Bluetooth. Not sure if it's precisely your problem, but I figure it's worth sharing anyway.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...al-bus/usb3-frequency-interference-paper.html

 

[Dull Pencil]

I've been using Waterfox for a few years now but more and more stuff and sites have been starting to work less well or not working at all. And when that stuff starts to involve your bank it's probably a good idea to change. Since this site has a banner for Brave I thought it would be a good choice. Except not, it was horrible. It could not import the Waterfox settings, it had horrible design choices I can't get over, it's language was like it was written for children, etc. etc.

A reason I used Waterfox for so long is its potential for customization, that is, being able to use features that where removed from Firefox for "reasons". An other reason I used it was for Firefox addons ability to block adds, like anti adblock blockers. I haven't seen an ad in years, not even on Twitch. How's that ability on Chrome based browsers?

So I'm looking for suggestions. Anything that's not too intrusive. How's Vivaldi?

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

How's Vivaldi?

I like it. Fast, stable, customizable, it's everything old Opera (Presto) offered without the bloat it also offered (built-in e-mail/torrent/IRC client and RSS reader). Memory usage is very acceptable. It also features gesture control. One occasionally annoying feature is its private mode forgetting everything - no history, no "open last closed", no saving passwords.

Right. One recent feature: built-in translator. But it's easy to disable.

 

[Never Scored]

I've been using Waterfox for a few years now but more and more stuff and sites have been starting to work less well or not working at all. And when that stuff starts to involve your bank it's probably a good idea to change. Since this site has a banner for Brave I thought it would be a good choice. Except not, it was horrible. It could not import the Waterfox settings, it had horrible design choices I can't get over, it's language was like it was written for children, etc. etc.

A reason I used Waterfox for so long is its potential for customization, that is, being able to use features that where removed from Firefox for "reasons". An other reason I used it was for Firefox addons ability to block adds, like anti adblock blockers. I haven't seen an ad in years, not even on Twitch. How's that ability on Chrome based browsers?

So I'm looking for suggestions. Anything that's not too intrusive. How's Vivaldi?

I like Pale Moon, but I run in to a similar problem where it flat out won't work for some sites. Works for my bank, but not the Canada Revenue Agency site.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

What was that "one weird tip" to lose weight fast?

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

What was that "one weird tip" to lose weight fast?

Get your limbs cut off.

 

[Dick Justice]

I've been using Waterfox for a few years now but more and more stuff and sites have been starting to work less well or not working at all. And when that stuff starts to involve your bank it's probably a good idea to change. Since this site has a banner for Brave I thought it would be a good choice. Except not, it was horrible. It could not import the Waterfox settings, it had horrible design choices I can't get over, it's language was like it was written for children, etc. etc.

A reason I used Waterfox for so long is its potential for customization, that is, being able to use features that where removed from Firefox for "reasons". An other reason I used it was for Firefox addons ability to block adds, like anti adblock blockers. I haven't seen an ad in years, not even on Twitch. How's that ability on Chrome based browsers?

So I'm looking for suggestions. Anything that's not too intrusive. How's Vivaldi?

Waterfox was bought by an ad company last year iirc. You might as well go back to trannyfox.

 

[Gay_Frog]

Rooting android is good idea? If so there's a sure way to root? And there's any guides to privacy roms or privacy in general to android?

 

[Kosher Dill]

Rooting android is good idea?

If you don't already have a specific purpose in mind for it: no.

And there's any guides to privacy roms or privacy in general to android?

Custom ROMs are an endangered species because cell phone carriers are switching to mandatory VoLTE and only a very few combinations of phone carrier, hardware, and ROM support that. I'd make sure yours is one of the ones that does before flashing anything.

 

[Gay_Frog]

If you don't already have a specific purpose in mind for it: no.

It's was more to deleted shitty app that come installed, maybe switch some library of google play, make the things less cluster fuck about notifications and see if I can stop some (probably) pings that android does to google or samsung.

Custom ROMs are an endangered species because cell phone carriers are switching to mandatory VoLTE and only a very few combinations of phone carrier, hardware, and ROM support that. I'd make sure yours is one of the ones that does before flashing anything.

Just to know toughs about grapheneoS and lineageos.

 

[Kosher Dill]

samsung

If you have a Samsung I recommend not rooting or installing a custom ROM at all. Just use one of the "debloat" scripts out there to disable unwanted apps, and go through and carefully set all the privacy-related settings. VoLTE is not supported on custom ROMs on Samsungs and probably never will be.