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It generally depends where you expect your threats to come from. I would personally say that Windows Defender is unironically ok. Coupled with a website adblock and maybe VPN/DNS content blockers (like what Mullvad provides) should be enough for the majority. I also just use https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload if I am suspicious of some file/link.
Use a DNS blackhole. They're braindead simple to set up and free.
 
What is a good utility for me to use to identify mystery files?

When something has a weird extension it's pretty easy to look up what it stands for, but when a file has no extension whatsoever and is just a unknown It's much harder and I would rather not go around trying to run it with different software over and over looking for a match. I found this thing but it won't work I double click and nothing happens. (Neither x86, x86-64 or even running it on WINE).
 
What is a good utility for me to use to identify mystery files?

When something has a weird extension it's pretty easy to look up what it stands for, but when a file has no extension whatsoever and is just a unknown It's much harder and I would rather not go around trying to run it with different software over and over looking for a match. I found this thing but it won't work I double click and nothing happens. (Neither x86, x86-64 or even running it on WINE).
The "file" command-line tool works well for me
 

Libation is a piece of software that allows you to easily download books from your Audible library. It will automatically convert them to MP3, tag them, including covers, and it will download any included PDFs as well.

If you're the kind of person that doesn't mind paying for audio books from Audible, but you want them in a DRM-free format that'll play on almost all devices, this is the best piece of software I've found. It has a ton of options you can tinker with, but is still easy to use.
 
That sounds way too basic, and constantly typing out the esoteric names out and entire file paths is bound to take forever. Is there no GUI opition?
How many weird mystery files do you have that just doing that is tough?

And why do you have them? Actually better off don't answer that one.
 
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That sounds way too basic, and constantly typing out the esoteric names out and entire file paths is bound to take forever. Is there no GUI opition?
If you Ctrl+C a file in whatever file picker you use it actually copies the path name, which you can then paste in a terminal.
(or at least, Thunar does that)
 
Thanks for the help guys.

I am doing some VM related stuff and it occurred to me it might be useful to have a portable virtual machine. Is there a way to make a portable install of VMWare or do I need to look into different programs?
 
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Thanks for the help guys.

I am doing some VM related stuff and it occurred to me it might be useful to have a portable virtual machine. Is there a way to make a portable install of VMWare or do I need to look into different programs?
is this Linux or Windows? and are you looking for a Type 1 or Type 2 hypervisor? If the latter for both, then just use Portable-VirtualBox https://www.vbox.me/

Otherwise, portable apps on linux is it's own can of worms (unless it's in an appImage or docker format) and I believe Hyper-V is they only type 1 hypervisor for Windows
 
I am doing some VM related stuff and it occurred to me it might be useful to have a portable virtual machine. Is there a way to make a portable install of VMWare or do I need to look into different programs?
You can't really make a portable install of VMware Workstation because it installs a bunch of services on the PC and makes a lot of alterations to the networking. Same with Hyper-V, enabling the feature requires a reboot and by default will create new NICs on the PC and do a bunch of other random bullshit.

What's the intent behind it? You may be better served by spinning up a VM in one location and VNCing into it depending on your use case.

If it's a case of "I have this one VM and I want to be able to run it on either my desktop or laptop" then you could just install VMware or Hyper-V (assuming it's Windows) on both PCs then find a convenient way to transport the VHDX/VMDK files between them. (run off a portable SSD?)
 
What's the intent behind it? You may be better served by spinning up a VM in one location and VNCing into it depending on your use case.

I wanna be able to run a Debian stable machine on my work PC.

I used to have the admin password, but the IT people have changed and so have the PCs now so I probably won't be able to just install VitrualBox. Not only does having a basic Linux install allow me to bypass the shitty DNS block they have that stops me from being racist on the internet during work it's actually faster and easier for me to start the VM and open a LibreOffice document to start doing work than it is to wait for OneDrive+Office365+Teams to finish booting up.

Like seriously what the actual fuck Microsoft. Why is a Linux install with 2 cores and 2gb faster than your fucking flagship product with 6 cores and 8gb? I counted. It takes the PC about 50 seconds from me turning it on to logging into my account, but it then takes about 5 to 8 minutes for it to actually become usable. Word sometimes takes 80 seconds to open, and that is when it is fast. If I click it as soon as I log in it can take over 4 minutes.
 
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I wanna be able to run a Debian stable machine on my work PC.

I used to have the admin password, but the IT people have changed and so have the PCs now so I probably won't be able to just install VitrualBox. Not only does having a basic Linux install allow me to bypass the shitty DNS block they have that stops me from being racist on the internet during work it's actually faster and easier for me to start the VM and open a LibreOffice document to start doing work than it is to wait for OneDrive+Office365+Teams to finish booting up.

Like seriously what the actual fuck Microsoft. Why is a Linux install with 2 cores and 2gb faster than your fucking flagship product with 6 cores and 8gb? I counted. It takes the PC about 50 seconds from me turning it on to logging into my account, but it then takes about 5 to 8 minutes for it to actually become usable. Word sometimes takes 80 seconds to open, and that is when it is fast. If I click it as soon as I log in it can take over 4 minutes.
If they won't let you install LibreOffice, if you get caught running something to circumvent your gonna be up shit creek. If you still want to push the envelope you are looking for a LiveCD with persistent storage. Debian used to be able to do this, but it appears to be depreciated.

MX-Linux is based off of Debian is very quick and does the job. I run a community respin of it for a rescue environment and it's great for getting in and out. This solution may not work on your work PC as they may run a BIOS lock. Not that common in small environments, but big corporations will probably have it locked down.
 
How do I archive a YouTube video from phone please? I’ve found a snap of the initial tweet that shows it was the last supper and maybe a video as well but want to archive it
Easiest to post the link on the forum and ask for it to be archived.

If you're on Android, you could possibly use NewPipe to do this, or, use the Termux command line environment and download a copy of yt-dlp. The latter is a bit convoluted.

There's also a 'My JDownloader' Android app for JDownloader which you can set up to allow you to control JDownloader on your desktop PC. I haven't used that but it gets reasonable reviews. The 'My JDownloader' iOS app is not official as far as I know, it might be malicious.
I wanna be able to run a Debian stable machine on my work PC.
If you can install WSL from the Windows Store, that might be an option. Obviously, this is assuming that you are fairly indispensable and that noone at the company actually cares about IT security so you won't get fired/they won't use your violation of security policies to justify your firing for cause.
 
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If you're on Android, you could possibly use NewPipe to do this, or, use the Termux command line environment and download a copy of yt-dlp. The latter is a bit convoluted.
A post from another thread mentioned Seal on F-Droid. It's what I've been using since, just a UI wrapper around yt-dlp without Termux fuckery. Whatever yt-dlp supports, it will handle no problem from my experience.

P.S. I wouldn't recommend NewPipe at the moment. They are in the middle of a full app rewrite, only accepting bugfix PRs. This has already led to the BraveNewPipe fork no longer working for me, not even the latest version.
 
I wanna be able to run a Debian stable machine on my work PC.

I used to have the admin password, but the IT people have changed and so have the PCs now so I probably won't be able to just install VitrualBox. Not only does having a basic Linux install allow me to bypass the shitty DNS block they have that stops me from being racist on the internet during work it's actually faster and easier for me to start the VM and open a LibreOffice document to start doing work than it is to wait for OneDrive+Office365+Teams to finish booting up.

Like seriously what the actual fuck Microsoft. Why is a Linux install with 2 cores and 2gb faster than your fucking flagship product with 6 cores and 8gb? I counted. It takes the PC about 50 seconds from me turning it on to logging into my account, but it then takes about 5 to 8 minutes for it to actually become usable. Word sometimes takes 80 seconds to open, and that is when it is fast. If I click it as soon as I log in it can take over 4 minutes.
Without local admin you're basically fucked. It'd be easier to just get an old laptop and run it alongside your work laptop but it's impossible to say whether that'll work or not without seeing the way the IT is setup at your place. You really shouldn't be messing with your work PC so much as they inevitably have fuckloads of corporate spyware that'll freak out.
 
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