Comments on: Tried and Tested Software Recommendations

By: mark

mark — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:26:27 +0000

Another good source for free av protection is the comodo suite of av/anti malware utilites, I especially like comodo firewall pro htttp://www.comodo.com
Bryce I would very much like your opinion about this suite of software

By: Ravi Gupta

Ravi Gupta — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:54:55 +0000

Its quite amusing what ignorance can lead to. It can lead to preconcieved notions and false sense of security, which is really more dangerous than no security at all. If you actually spend some time checking out facts about the apps you have mentioned, i guess you will surprise yourself a lot. For example, the detection rates of Avira Antivir Personal Edition Classic surpass that of AVG in ANY and ALL antivirus comparatives. In fact even Avast surpasses AVG as well but its not as good as Antivir. Any person on this planet(yes it does sound like a huge claim but i stand by it), looking for a free antivirus and not choosing Avira Antivir Personal Edition Classic is actually loosing an opportunity. You can check this out by trying it out on the machines you THINK are clean. Or better still, take a look at this: http://winnow.oitc.com/malewarestats.php .If you are not interested in the detection power but want to go with a big brand name you can have McAfee`s VirusScan Plus 2008(antivirus+antispyware+firewall+junk cleaner) for free via AOL. Now if you want to just have a second but non resident antivirus on your machine you can go for Norton Scan available via Google pack or an even better option is bitdefender free edition 8(not 10 coz it interferes with XP security center) available from filehippo.com. And for heaven`s sake dont say anything about the memory consumption of Antivir, install it and note down the memory consumption in task manager. Do the same with AVG. Let yourself get convinced. As for the firewall, take a look at this link http://www.matousec.com/projects/windows-personal-firewall-analysis/leak-tests-results.php . This will tell you that the windows xp and zonealarm firewall free are junk firewalls. The best free ones are Comodo and Online Armor. As for antispyware (which you didnt include) the best bets are Spyware Terminator and Spyware Doctor Starter edition. And heres one more software, instead of using VLC media player, use KLite Mega Codec Pack and during installation choose profile 3. It can play even those formats that VLC cant play and profile 3 will cause all codecs to be integrated into Windows Media Player itself. This will result in a single default media player that can play anything. Want to know where VLC actually scores? You can increase the volume of an existing media file upto 400% by pressing Ctrl+Up Arrow Key during playback. And if you really hate windows media player, try KMPlayer, even it plays more files than VLC. Now for the spam filter, BullGuard has released a free spam filter that is way better than the one mentioned in this post. And as for an email client, Windows Live Mail is a much better email client than thunderbird, it lets you check your hotmail accounts too and consumes less memory and it can even minimise to the tray. Looks way better than Thunderbird too.
Well i had a lot more to say but i guess i would feel more comfortable if further discussion is carried out at ravi16aug@gmail.com.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:40:31 +0000

for anti spyware I tend to go with AVG anti spyware. Its free like the anti virus and seems to work very well.

By: LeBokov

LeBokov — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:25:43 +0000

For VPN solutions, I suggest to give SSL Explorer a try. It’s browser based so you can easily configure it from any machine. And it’s free.

By: iladelf

iladelf — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:33:34 +0000

Tried the suggested Spamfighter. Looked good, but immediately uninstalled it when it caused an about one minute delay in bootup, and Windows Installer appearing on the desktop at startup without doing anything. Once uninstalled, the problem went away.

Maybe there’s another free antispam product you folks could recommend?

By: gunslinger

gunslinger — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:40:23 +0000

I already have and use most of these, its a good collection. I don’t use K9 Web Protection instead going with a keylogger and the threat of a beating.

By: JohnR

JohnR — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:25:21 +0000

You’ve misspelled “Cobian”, as in “Cobian Backup”, a couple of times. I’ve noticed you do this in the forums, too.

It’s just a typo, no big deal.

By: Rod

Rod — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:37:09 +0000

I suggest that you look at OpenDISK (and it’s sibling OpenEducationDisc.)

http://theopendisc.com/.

Several of the programs you have suggested are on it plus a pile more. All are OpenSource. I haven’t used/tried all of them but those I have are great.

An advangate to this over just making suggestions is that you can burn a CDROM and pass it on to your customer. The ISO image includes a very nice installer.