Close non responsive application in Windows

DuckGoGo a popular private search engine is releasing its first browser soon that is focused on privacy like its search engine. From the recent blog, Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of DuckDuckGo, has stated:

“Like we’ve done on mobile, DuckDuckGo for desktop will redefine user expectations of everyday online privacy,”

From everything that we have learned so far, the browser will be focused on making privacy super easy and simple, eliminating tons of different settings about privacy, and making the whole environment robust privacy protection all set by default. Settings will be applied in all fields, across search, browsing, email, and more. Gabriel also said that aim of the browser is not just a privacy browser, it is meant to be built and used as your everyday browser, for everyday use that protects your privacy as a bonus. One interesting thing that was stated is that browser itself is built upon OS-provided rendering engines instead of typical Chromium. DuckDuckGo says this approach will strip away a lot of the unnecessary cruft and clutter that's accumulated over the years in major browsers. Also, the company stated that when compared to Chrome, the DuckDuckGo app desktop is cleaner, way more private and that early tests have found out that it is significantly faster as well. Is this just corporate advertising or reality? We will see once the browser is released, or once it is released for public testing. Until then take care and happy holidays.

nslookup is a command-line tool that helps in finding the DNS records of a website. It sends a name server query to the DNS and obtains the corresponding IP address. Aside from that, it can also perform some complex functionality such as finding details about FTP server, Mail server and many more but most of them are used by administrators. The best thing about nslookup is that it queries the DNS server directly and it does not rely on the cache. On the other hand, there is another tool called PING that is used to verify connectivity. PING sends a packet of information to the IP address or Domain and gets back a response in the form of packets. So if everything goes well, all packets are received but if not, it will help you find out where the delay in the network exactly is. However, the ping command does not always attempt a DNS lookup which means that it might be using the DNS cache and use the IP address available in that table. Although both nslookup and PING help you in identifying the host or IP address, however, they don’t always work and sometimes fail. So if your nslookup works but ping fails on your Windows 10 PC when querying the IP address of a website then it could be caused by many reasons. It could be that the nslookup queries work for you but when you try to use PING, it fails. For instance, if you open the abc.com website, here’s how it will look like:

nslookup xyz.com Server: dns.company.com Address: 192.168.1.38 C:> ping xyz.com Ping request could not find host xyz.com. Please check the name and try again.

The domain is converted into an IP address and then data is sent to that IP address when you use PING. So when a reply comes back it means that the data is going back and forth to that domain without any problem. However, if the DNS fails to resolve the IP address of the website or if your PC does not attempt a DNS lookup, you will receive a similar error message that says, “Could not find host” and so on. To resolve this issue, here are some options that might help.

Option 1 – Reset Winsock, TCP/IP & Flush DNS

Resetting Winsock, TCP/IP, and flushing DNS might help you resolve the issue with nslookup and PING. To do so, follow these steps:

• Right-click on the Start button and click on Command Prompt (administrator) so you can pull up an elevated Command Prompt.
• After that, execute each one of the commands listed below. And after you typed in one after the other, you have to hit Enter.

1. netsh winsock reset – type in this command to reset Winsock
2. netsh int ip reset resettcpip.txt – type in this command to reset TCP/IP
3. ipconfig /flushdns – type in this command to flush the DNS cache

• Next, restart your PC and check if the problem’s fixed.

Option 2 – Force Windows to do a DNS lookup using FQDN

• Go to Settings > Network & Internet > Status > Change adapter options.
• From there, right-click on the network and select Properties.
• Next, in case you’re using IPv6, from the list of connections available in the list, select Internet Protocol Version 4.
• Then click on Properties and click Advanced.
• After that, switch to the DNS tab and select “Append these DNS suffixes (in order)” and click on the Add button and then add “.” as a suffix so that each time you query using PING and another tool, it will add a “.” at the end and will force the lookup.

Option 3 – Make sure that there is only one default gateway

If your computer has more than one NIC connected and there are multiple default gateways, then it will most likely create confusion which is why you need to remove the default gateway from the configuration of all NICs and make sure that there is only one default gateway.

Option 4 – Use the Google Public DNS

You might want to change your DNS to Google Public DNS as it could also help you in fixing the nslookup and PING issues. To do so, follow the steps below.

• The first thing you have to do is right-click on the network icon in the Taskbar and select Network and Sharing Center.
• Next, click on the “Change Adapter Settings” option.
• After that, search for the network connection that you are using to connect to the internet. Note that the option might be “Wireless Connection” or “Local Area Connection”.
• Right-click on your network connection and click on Properties.
• Then select the new window to choose the “Internet Protocol 4 (TCP/IPv4)” option.
• After that, click on the Properties button and click the checkbox in the new window for the option “Use the following DNS server addresses”.
• Type in “8.8.8.8” and “8.8.4.4” and click OK and exit.

Option 5 – Check the Windows Host file

You can also try to cross-check the Windows Hosts file to find out if the website you are trying to open has been blocked, because if it is, then it’s no wonder why PING fails even when nslookup works. There are instances when some third-party application modifies the file and adds some websites to the blocklists. So if the website is indeed blocked, you need to remove it from the list.

Option 6 – Delete the WLAN Profiles

Deleting the WLAN Profiles might be a good idea if you are not able to connect to the internet on your computer and if you’re using Wi-Fi. It could be that the networks that were connected previously have gone rogue which is why it is not connecting properly. And so deleting the WLAN profiles might help you in fixing the issue with nslookup and PING.

Option 7 – Reinstall the Network Adapter Drivers

• Tap the Win + R keys to launch the Run window and then type in the “msc” command and hit Enter to open the Device Manager window.
• Under the Device Manager, you will see a list of drivers. From there, look for the Network Adapters and expand it.
• Then right-click on each one of the Network drivers and select “Uninstall device”.
• Restart your PC.

Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox are some of the leading browsers commonly used these days and they all include an embedded copy of the Adobe Flash Player. So if you are running a Windows 10 PC then you can have up to 4 copies of Adobe Flash Player; one for Microsoft Edge, one for Internet Explorer, one for Opera, one for Firefox. You might also experience cases wherein two flash players are simultaneously running, i.e. one installed in Chrome as a single plug-in and another one installed in Windows, trying to parse the data. And in such cases, you might consider removing or uninstalling one of the versions of Adobe Flash Player. If you do, then you’ve come to the right place as this post will guide you in disabling the embedded Adobe Flash Player in Windows 10. Before you get started in removing the Adobe Flash Player in Internet Explorer & Microsoft Edge browser, you need to sign in with your administrative account even if don’t use it or set it as the default browser. After you’ve signed in to your administrative account, follow the steps below. Step 1: Open your browser, if you are using Edge then open it. Step 2: After opening your browser, go to its Settings and select Advanced Settings. Step 3: Next, Move the slider against the “Use Adobe Flash Player” option to off. Step 4: After that, open File Explorer and navigate to this address, “C:/Windows/servicingPackages” and from there, check on the following entries:

• Adobe-Flash-For-Windows-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64….(version number of the Flash Player)
• Adobe-Flash-For-Windows-WOW64-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64….(version number of the Flash player #)
• Adobe-Flash-For-Windows-onecoreuap-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64…(version number of the Flash Player)

Step 5: Take note of all the listed package names of Adobe Flash Player and tap the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box and type “Regedit” in the field and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor. Step 6: Next, right-click on the three keys which have the name of the packages you listed and select “Permissions” one after the other. Step 7: Then check “Allow” to enable full control for the Administrators account and click OK to save the changes made. Step 8: Select the three keys one after the other and select Visibility DWORD located on the right side and then right-click on Visibility and change the Value data from 2 to 1. Step 9: Go over the same procedures again for the other keys. Once you’ve completed then you should now be able to remove packages using the DISM tool. Step 10: Simply open an elevated Command Prompt and execute the following commands:

• dism /online /remove-package /packagename:Adobe-Flash-For-Windows-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64-10.0.17134.1
• dism /online /remove-package /packagename:Adobe-Flash-For-Windows-WOW64-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64-10.0.17134.1
• dism /online /remove-package /packagename:Adobe-Flash-For-Windows-onecoreuap-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64-10.0.17134.1

Keep in mind that the numbers at the end could be different on your computer due to the difference of version number so you have to use the numbers on your system. After that, reboot your computer.

Sticky Notes is one of the useful programs and in the early days, the option is available for users to change the font size of the text a lot easier. However, for some unknown reason, Microsoft decided to get rid of this feature in the latest Windows Update. One would expect that the feature will be replaced by an even more useful feature but it’s not which makes the Sticky Notes app worse than before. Worry not though for it doesn’t have to stay that way as there is another thing you can try to change the font size in your Sticky Notes app and that’s what we’re going to cover in this post. As mentioned, Microsoft removing this font feature is quite strange and in the past, users asked for this feature and since it’s no longer available, you can try following the steps given below to bring it back. And for that, you need to go to the Ease of Access section in the Settings app. Refer to the steps given below for more instructions. Step 1: First, tap the Win + I keys to open Settings and then go to the Ease of Access section. Step 2: After going to the Ease of Access menu and select Display from the list of options. Step 3: From there, you should see an option that says “Make text bigger”. And then use your mouse to navigate to the slider to change the size of the font. Note: Take note that after doing all the steps above, it will change not just the Sticky Notes app but also everything in Windows 10. This method is actually the best since it only changes the size of the apps rather than a wholesale change in your Windows 10 computer. Step 4: Next, scroll under Display until you see the “Change the size of apps and text on the main display” option where you’ll see that the option is 100% but you’ll want to change that to 125%. Step 5: After that, click on the drop-down menu and select 125% and then restart your Windows 10 computer. Step 6: Now open the Sticky Notes app and check if you can now change the font size in the Sticky Notes app.

If you open any program in your Windows 10 PC such as Outlook and suddenly get an error message saying, “Failed to register a VB Script dll. Reinstall or run Regsvr32.exe Vbscript.dll to self-register”, read on, as this post will guide you on what you can do to fix it. The obvious solution to this problem is by re-registering the “vbscript.dll” file on your computer. Refer to the instructions given below to re-register the VB Script DLL file and to fix the error.

• Step 1: Open the Command Prompt as an administrator from the WinX Menu.
• Step 2: After opening Command Prompt, type in the following command and tap Enter on your keyboard.

regsvr32.exe vbscript.dll

• Step 3: Once you enter the command, it will re-register the VB Script DLL file using the Windows OS tool called Regsvr32 or regsvr32.exe. This tool is a command-line utility used to register and unregister OLE controls such as DLL and ActiveX (OCX) controls in the Windows environment. After the execution of the command, you should see the following pop-up on your screen which means the re-registering of the concerned DLL file has succeeded.

On the other hand, if re-registering the DLL file didn’t work, then you can try logging in using an administrator account and then register the DLL file again or you could also use the System File Checker to figure out what the problem really is and automatically fix it. System File Checker or SFC is a built-in command utility that helps in restoring corrupted files as well as missing files. It replaces bad and corrupted system files with good system files. To run the SFC command, follow the steps given below.

• Tap Win + R to launch Run.
• Type in cmd in the field and tap Enter.
• After opening Command Prompt, type in sfc /scannow

The command will start a system scan which will take a few whiles before it finishes. Once it’s done, you could get the following results:

1. Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
2. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
3. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them.

It is no secret that a few days ago Facebook has been breach and tons of user accounts have been compromised. These kinds of things are very unpleasant experiences for both users and the company itself. User trust lowers significantly in the company and it can greatly increase the chances of users migrating to another platform. This just shows how much a hacker or security breach can produce damage to the business. Sadly we can not offer you guidance or assistance in recovering your stolen data nor can we provide you with removing your data from the hands of the attacker. What we can do is to provide you with information has your data been stolen. Threat actor released the personal information for 533,313,128 Facebook users on a hacking forum, including mobile numbers, name, gender, location, relationship status, occupation, date of birth, and email addresses. This data was originally sold in private sales after being collected in 2019 using a bug in the 'Add Friend' feature on Facebook. Facebook had closed this vulnerability soon after it was discovered, but threat actors continued to circulate the data until it was finally released practically for free. Since then, Troy Hunt has added the leaked data to his Have I Been Pwned data breach notification service to help users determine if a Facebook member's data was exposed in the leak. Go to the site and enter your email address to check and see if your data has been compromised.

A not long time ago we had an article about the deep WEB and dark WEB here on errortools.com explaining its origins and its purpose. The article can be found here if you are interested: https://errortools.com/windows/what-is-deep-and-dark-web/ Now at this point in time, we want to present you with 15 great Deep WEB sites that could offer you some information not found anywhere else, that could offer you some privacy, or simply to have some fun and safely explore how it is like to be part of deep WEB. Take notice that for successful visiting of given sites you will need to have installed TOR browser. More about Tor browser itself can be found here: https://errortools.com/blog/software-review-series-tor-browser/ and its official website for download here: https://www.torproject.org/download/ Make sure that you copy the onion link and paste it into your TOR browser in order to access the site. That being said, let’s begin.

Mail2Tor

http://mail2tor2zyjdctd.onion/ If you want secure and private ways of sending your emails then look no further. Mail2Tor uses a webmail client and encrypts each email received or sent, combine that for not storing IP addresses and you have a private and safe environment for your emails.

The Hidden Wiki

http://zqktlwiuavvvqqt4ybvgvi7tyo4hjl5xgfuvpdf6otjiycgwqbym2qad.onion/wiki/index.php/Main_Page The Hidden Wiki is the go-to site if you want to explore more of deep WEB since it is the site of collected .onion sites. Think of it as a registry of onion sites that want to be accessed publicly but offer anonymity.

TorLinks

http://torlinksd6pdnihy.onion/ TorLinks is another site focusing on .onion site listings. Site themselves are divided into categories and are easy to find. Take note that .onion sites come and go so make sure to visit frequently both The Hidden Wiki and TorLinks in order to be updated.

Torch Search Engine

ttp://xmh57jrzrnw6insl.onion/ Torch is the oldest and most well-known search engine for dark web links, with its database of over a million .onion websites there is a chance that you will find what you are looking for on it.

DuckDuckGo

http://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/ Integrated into TOR itself as a default search engine DucDuckGo has proven itself to be a great competitor and challenger to Google. But unlike Google, DuckDuckGo will not track you nor store your search activities making it a great general private search engine.

Facebook

https://www.facebookwkhpilnemxj7asaniu7vnjjbiltxjqhye3mhbshg7kx5tfyd.onion/ Yup, Facebook has its own .onion version of its popular platform. Now since Facebook itself is a social media platform anonymity is out of the question but with .onion routing, you can have and maintain a Facebook account from locations where you normally could not like in some countries where Facebook.com is banned.

Galaxy3

http://galaxy3bhpzxecbywoa2j4tg43muepnhfalars4cce3fcx46qlc6t3id.onion/ Galaxy3 is also a social platform, the site is mostly populated with code experts and other individuals posting all kinds of stuff.

The Dark Lair

http://vrimutd6so6a565x.onion/index.php/Board Dark Lair was the first image exchange website that evolved into a social network. One difference from the other two mentioned is that you can engage in the website without registration as an anonymous user.

Pro Publica

https://www.propub3r6espa33w.onion/ The aim of the five-time Pulitzer Prize winner ProPublica is “To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.” It’s the first major online publication to have a .onion address. The non-profit newsroom is funded by organizations such as the Sandler Foundation and has made countless contributions to the fight for free speech and privacy.

Soylent News

http://7rmath4ro2of2a42.onion/ Soylent news is an onion site that well brings news. The difference from other sites of the same content is that Soylent news is community moderated without any big names involved so it is authentic in its content.

CIA

ttp://ciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad.onion/ Tor’s history is an unlikely tale. It was created by the U.S Navy with the purpose of helping informants in foreign nations to communicate safely over the Internet. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in that spirit, released a .onion site so that people from across the globe can browse their resources securely and anonymously.

Secure drop

https://secrdrop5wyphb5x.onion/ Secure drop is a platform for changing leaked information and for journalists to communicate with their leads in private. It is used by Washington Post, Pro Publica, and The Guardian.

Hidden Answers

http://answerszuvs3gg2l64e6hmnryudl5zgrmwm3vh65hzszdghblddvfiqd.onion/ Hidden Answers is Reddit or Quora of the dark web but as in the spirit of the dark web, all discussed topics and stories are in total anonymity.

SCI-HUB

http://scihub22266oqcxt.onion/ With over 50 million research papers in the domain of science shared freely, Sci-Hub eliminates all barriers of free knowledge and offers a unique approach to education and scientific information.

Smartmixer.IO

http://smrtmxdxognxhv64.onion/ Smartmixer is a bitcoin mixer. The service scrambles your bitcoin with other users making your purchases completely anonymous. And that's it. 15 dark WEB onion sites you need to visit. I hope that you enjoyed the list and found something useful in it. Also, note that onion links can change overnight so if any of provided links do not work just go to DuckDuckGo and search for the site with the onion at the end.

If you suddenly encountered an error saying, “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005)” when you are using an application on your Windows 10 computer, read on as this post will provide you some potential fixes that could help you fix the error. You can encounter the “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005)” error on many applications such as VLC, Chrome, Word, and any other executable files and even the operating system files. When you get this kind of error, you will see the following error message:

“The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005). Click on OK to close the application.”

This kind of application error can occur due to several reasons which include damaged installation of the application or system files may have gotten corrupted or damaged. It could also be caused by a malware infection. There are a couple of suggestions provided in this post to help you resolve the error. You can try to run both a System File Checker scan and the DISM tool or reinstall the problematic application or repair-install Windows 10 as well as run a malware scan. Note that the options provided below do not have to be followed in sequence.

Option 1 – Try to run a System File Checker scan

As mentioned, the error could be due to corrupted or damaged system files and one of the ways you can fix that is by running a System File Checker or SFC scan on your computer. To do so, follow these steps:

• In the Windows Start Search, type “command prompt” and right-click on Command Prompt from the search results, and then select the “Run as administrator” option.
• After opening Command Prompt with admin privileges, type the “sfc /scannow” and tap Enter to execute it.
• Once the scan is finished, restart your computer and see if the “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005)” error is fixed or not.

Option 2 – Run the DISM tool

You can try running the Deployment Imaging and Servicing Management or DISM tool to fix the application error. Using this built-in tool, you have various options such as the “/ScanHealth”, “/CheckHealth”, and “/RestoreHealth”.

• Open the Command Prompt with admin privileges.
• Then type in the following commands and make sure to hit Enter right after you type each one of them:
  • Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
  • Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
  • exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
• Do not close the window if the process takes a while as it will probably take a few minutes to finish.

Option 3 – Try reinstalling the application

You might also want to uninstall the application and download its latest working version and then install it back again. Note that when you do this, you will lose all your app data.

Option 4 – Try to repair install Windows 10

• First, you have to click this link and then click the Download Tool Now button.
• Next, click the “Use the tool to create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file)…” option and follow the next given instructions on the screen.
• Now select the ISO file option in step 5.
• After that, you should now have an ISO file.
• Next, go to the location where you’ve downloaded the ISO file.
• Then right-click on the Windows 10 ISO file and select the Open with option and then select File Explorer.
• Now click on “setup.exe” and follow the next instructions that appear on the screen. When asked, you have to select either Nothing (clean install) or Keep personal files only option. Take note that you must not select the “Keep personal files, apps, and Windows settings”.

Option 5 – Try scanning your computer using Windows Defender

It is possible that your computer is infected with malware which could be why you’re getting the “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005)” error. Thus, you need to scan your computer using Windows Defender.

• Tap the Win + I keys to open Update & Security.
• Then click on the Windows Security option and open Windows Defender Security Center.
• Next, click on Virus & threat protection > Run a new advanced scan.
• Now make sure that Full Scan is selected from the menu and then click the Scan Now button to get started.

Windows 10 has a lot of several useful features and one of them is the Nearby Sharing feature. You can access this feature by going to Start > Settings > System > Shared experiences. From there, switch on the Nearby Sharing option and select the folder where you want to download the files to. This feature is really useful as it allows you to share files. However, there were reports from a number of users recently stating that Nearby Sharing is not working on their Windows 10 computers. If you are one of the users facing this problem, you might want to try checking if the Windows 10 v1803 Update is installed on your computer or not. You could also try to check if Bluetooth supports low energy mode or you could also try bringing the device closer or check if the adapter has Bluetooth version 4.0 or later. For more information, refer to each one of the given options below.

Option 1 – Try checking if Windows 10 v1803 Update is installed

To check if the Windows 10 v1803 Update is installed on your computer, go to Start > Settings > System > About. From there, scroll down to the Windows specifications and check the Version. If it is 1803 or above, then the Nearby Sharing feature should be active on your computer. However, if you find that Windows 10 v1803 Update is not installed yet, then you need to update your computer to its latest version and then see if it fixes the problem or not.

Option 2 – Verify if Bluetooth supports low energy mode

Although low energy mode is not really necessary in using Nearby Sharing, there are some Bluetooth terminals that support low energy mode which makes a lot of difference. Thus, you need to check if Bluetooth in your computer supports low energy mode by following these steps:

• Tap the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box.
• Next, type “devmgmt.msc” in the field and tap Enter to open the Device Manager.
• After that, expand the list of Bluetooth adapters, and then right-click on your adapter and select Properties.
• Go to the Details tab and select Bluetooth radio supports Low Energy Central Role from the drop-down menu and if its value says “<true>”, it means that your Bluetooth supports low energy mode, otherwise, it doesn’t.
• If your Bluetooth does not support low energy mode, then you might want to consider purchasing an external one.

Option 3 – Try bringing the devices closer

Nearby Sharing might not work if your devices are not close enough. Thus, you need to bring your devices closer together and see if it fixes the problem. And when you do, make sure that Network Sharing is switched on for all the concerned devices.

Option 4 – Make sure that you’re using Bluetooth version 4.0 or later

For you to use the Nearby Sharing feature, you have to make sure that the adapter for all the concerned devices is using Bluetooth version 4.0 or later. So if one of the devices or if all the devices are not using this version or later versions, then you must buy an external Bluetooth adapter for you to enjoy the Nearby Sharing feature.

Every computer has to have a graphic card, it is one of the essential components in order for the computer to work. If you have a second-hand computer, got one as a gift, or similar, there is a high chance that you do not really know which components are inside. Luckily finding out which graphic card you have inside is quite easy. Right-click the taskbar and select Task Manager Click the Performance tab at the top of the window, if you don’t see the tabs, click “More Info.” Select “GPU 0” in the sidebar. The GPU’s manufacturer and model names are displayed at the top right corner of the window. You’ll also see other information, such as the amount of dedicated memory on your GPU, in this window. Windows 10’s Task Manager displays your GPU usage here, and you can also view GPU usage by application. If your system has multiple GPUs, you’ll also see “GPU 1” and so on here. Each represents a different physical GPU.