The majority of these online forms are multiple screens long, and because they're invariably HTTPS, they'll time out after a finite time which isn't always made known to the user

I wonder why I even bother visiting Slashdot any more, when the basic workings of the web are not understood by the submitter nor the editors.

There is no language that seems to have more web relevance these days.

Yes, there is. It's Javascript.

To put the security difference into perspective, three random 6 character passwords that are stored using standard salted secure hashes can be cracked by a laptop in an hour.

Really? Okay, here are three NONrandom 6 character passwords that are stored using standard salted secure hashes:

a44a6d60ebc202a7d296d82a7eac5748b7a93474c996e533795d769b297e613c
5529ce75d4bf3bc7b488c8591906cc39bf5ac90feeeb9fbc278b0f98e03cafc6
9de700d2bc4fa3ed30a3459a9cffd7785c10f465c5b9cfb4a83d417e9347f0f9

Start your laptops, gentlemen. I'll even give you a hint. The first password is 123456. The second is abcdef.

I, too, have parents.

First I used Avast, but after a while it began bugging me to to buy the paid version, and slowed down my PC with ill-timed, intensive scans.

I switched to AVG, but after a while it began bugging me to to buy the paid version, and slowed down my PC with ill-timed, intensive scans.

Now I use Microsoft Security Essentials, which is surprisingly good. So far.

Complement with a Spybot Search and Destroy scan every now and then and you're good to go.

... the excellent A Grey Moon Over China by Thomas A. Day. A tale of the life of a futuristic soldier who escapes Earth in a colony ark to a far away system. There his group attempts to colonize while dealing with their own internal politics and a non-human threat. The mistakes and triumphs of a lifetime really add up, and the ending left me with a sense of sadness that I strongly remember now, a few years later.

Wonderful book.