By indyan on November 16, 2008
I have covered various security products before. I even told you how to get them for free (Six Premium Antivirus Software for free and Six Premium Antivirus Software for Free – II). But in the past I mainly concentrated on the detection rates. Detecting a malware is important, but equally important is completely removing the malware (once detected). So how effective is your antivirus in cleaning up the mess once a malware is successful in attacking the system? Anti-Malware.com put all the popular antivirus softwares through the test and the results are shocking to say the least.
Anti-malware.com first infected the test bed with Adware. Win32.NewDotNet, Backdoor.Win32.Sinowal.ce, Email-Worm.Win32.Scano.bd, Rootkit.Win32.Agent.ea, Rootkit.Win32.Podnuha.a, Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Agent.vug, Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Mutant.e, Trojan-Proxy.Win32.Saturn.cu, Trojan-Proxy. Win32.Xorpix.dh, Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.bsa, Trojan.Win32.Agent.lkz, Trojan.Win32.Monderb.gen, Trojan.Win32.Pakes.cuh, Trojan.Win32.Small.yc and Virus.Win32.Rustock.a. Once the system was compromised antivirus softwares were installed and full system scan was run. After the antivirus software was done, a list of remaining traces was prepared. You can find the detailed methodology used here.
So, how did the antivirus softwares do? Terribly. Here are the results:
Continue reading “How Effective is Your Antivirus Software?”
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By indyan on November 13, 2008
Instant desktop search softwares are nothing new. In fact you are pampered for choice as far as local desktop search clients go. But the fact remains that almost all of them aren’t really instant search. Most of these tools take hours to index your computer, and build huge indexes before getting started. To make matters worse you need to have them running in the background to maintain an up-to-date index. Here are two desktop search tools that are able to almost instantaneously build their index (within a couple of minutes) and display results.
Everything
Everything is a lightning fast search tool. It doesn’t build an index from scratch. Instead it utilizes the data present in the Master File Table (MFT) in NTFS volumes. Unfortunately this means that it’s compatible only with NTFS filesystems, but this isn’t a huge deal breaker as most people use NTFS anyway. Everything took about 3 minutes to index my system the first time it was run and claims that it can index 1,000,000 in about 1 minute. Although you can have Everything running in the background it isn’t essential. Unlike traditional desktop search client Everything indexes only file and folder names and not the data contained by them (e.g. the text in a .txt file).
It supports wildcards and Boolean operators along with regex and has fairly advanced search syntax. Another plus is the context menu integration. This allows you to instantly view all the files present in the selected folder and subfolders and to search among them.
Download Everything (292 KB)
Official Website
Platforms Supported : Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista (with NTFS file system)
License : Freeware
Version Reviewed : 1.14
Continue reading “Instant Desktop Search – Now For Real”
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By indyan on November 13, 2008
Opera Mini – the most popular mobile browser, with more than 20 million users just got even better. With Mozilla preparing to enter the Mobile arena the competition is about to get tougher. But Opera is definitely trying their best to stay ahead of the curve.
Opera has added a server park in the United State. This should considerably increase browsing speeds for those based in US or in the Asia Pacific region. Other users should also get better speeds due to reduction in load on the original Norwegian server.Other major improvement includes the ability to sync notes through Opera link and better support for YouTube Mobile. Opera Mini should be able to play YouTube videos on most new Nokia or Sony Ericsson phones.Skins (which were dropped in v4.0) are also back. The beta build can be downloaded from here.
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By indyan on November 9, 2008
Opera Sharp – the default skin since v9.5 (kestrel) is a beauty. It’s probably the best looking default skin for any browser (at least on Windows). However, it comes at a cost. The super wide tab bar eats up a lot of screen real-estate.
Fortunately enough there is a solution. Tamil took it upon himself to slim down Opera. He modified the default skin to reduce the width of tabs and buttons. You can download Tamil’s skin – Opera Slim (Modified) from here. It also contains other usability improvements like grey coloured active tab, grey scrollbar, a more distinct attention colour (yellow) for tabs and a more distinct lock icon. If you dont want these changes download Opera Standard Slim. This version retains the original Opera colour scheme and settings. The only change being reduction in width of tabs and buttons. Another slim skin is Opera 9.5 Refreshed Standard by caglaryesilyurt. This skin contains a modified colour scheme along with a speed dial background.
And if Opera Slim isn’t slim enough for you, there is O95 Super Slim by patkoscsaba. The address bar has been slimmed down to 10px. The personal bar and navigation bars are also slimmed down along with other space modifications.
Continue reading “Opera Slim – Reclaim Your Screen Space”
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By indyan on November 5, 2008
Remember Windows 3? The Operating System that in many ways helped Microsoft become the behemoth that it is today. Windows v1 and v2.x didn’t exactly set the world on fire. The Windows juggernaut really got rolling with the release of Windows v3.
Why am I blogging about Windows 3x while the rest of the world is going gaga over Windows 7? Because Microsoft killed off Win 3x at the end of last month. Yes, you read it right. Although Win 3x is a long forgotten thing of the past for most of us, Microsoft was actually issuing licenses for Windows 3x till October 2008. So who was buying it?
Desktop sales of Windows 3x ceased to exist long back. But it managed to live on as an embedded system. Most notably it found a place in Qantas and Virgin Atlantic’s onboard entertainment systems. Other uses included powering ticketing systems and retail cash tills.
Adios Windows 3x.
Continue reading “Good Bye Windows 3”
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By indyan on October 31, 2008
Earlier this year I brought to you Six Premium Antivirus Software for free (the links for F-Secure, eScan Anti-Virus, CA Anti-Virus and Norman are still working). Well, the security companies are at it again and there are loads of free extended trial keys up for grabs. Here are six premium security products for free. Grab them now, since these things don’t last long.
Mcafee VirusScan Plus : Mcaffe VirusScan may not be the best product in the market, but in case you want to try it you can get a free 90 Day Trial from here.
But, considering the fact that it was in 24rth position (with respect to Malware on demand test detection rate) in the Avtest.org comparison (with 93.6% detection rate for malware and 94.5% detection rate for adware/spyware), you would be better served by the products listed below.
Source : Raymond
PC Tools Internet Security : PC Advisor is sponsoring a 1 Year License of PC Tools Internet Security. PC Tools uses a modified version of Virus Buster’s engine for its antivirus component. I am not sure as to how good that is, but PC Tools’ antispyware engine is one of the best in the market. Here is how to get a 1 year license for free :
Go to http://defilter.co.uk/ and surf to http://www.pctools.com/internet-security/free/promo/PCADVISOR0809. Use jkm3cx as promo code and submit the form.
Once again thanks to Raymond for sharing this.
AVG 8.0 Anti-virus Pro : IOBits is providing a 3 month trial license for AVG Pro. However, first you would need to download Advanced WindowsCare Personal or Professional. You will get the link to download AVG 8.0 Anti-virus Pro with a 90 day trial license key from the News Centre. Detailed instructions are available here.
My Digital Life has another trick that allows you to activate AVG Anti-Virus 8 till 2018. However, I haven’t tested it. Before using AVG keep in mind that the pro version managed to detect only 95.8% of malware and 87.0% of spyware/adware and ended up at 20th position in AV-Test.org (w.r.t. Malware detection rate).
Continue reading “Six Premium Antivirus Software for Free – II”
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By indyan on October 30, 2008
The Filter started out as a music recommendation and playlist generation plug-in backed by Rock star Peter Gabriel and Eden Ventures. When it launched there was no auto-playlist generation in iTunes. But things changed with the release of iTunes 8 (which incorporated Apple’s playlist generation technology called Genius). As a result The Filter also had to change and evolve. Earlier this year they unveiled their new and revamped service which now supported iTunes (both on Windows and Mac), Windows Media Player, Winamp and even many Symbian powered Nokia handsets. So how does the brand new The Filter perform? Does it have what it takes to stand out from the crowd?
Getting Started
Immediately after registration The Filter displays a list songs belonging to a wide range of genres and asks you to rate (thumbs up or down) at least six songs. Based on the choices that you make a preliminary Recommended Songs list is built. I found the initial list to be quite a bit off the mark. But this was because the initial selection of songs I was asked to rate didn’t have many of the favourite artists/bands. After this I was given the option to import my Flixster and Last.fm profile. Once I imported my Last.fm profile (I don’t have a Flixster account) the recommended music changed sharply. After listening to some of the suggestions I must say I am impressed. I discovered many new artists songs and artists that I liked. Unlike last.fm which relies heavily on tags and collaborative filtering to recommend similar artists, The Filter uses Bayesian mathematics and Evidence-based transaction engine. As a result the recommended songs are often not exactly similar to what you are listening to. And this is one of the things I love about The Filter. The problem with last.fm is that if you listen to Gothic rocks for a week it will fill your recommendations with more and more gothic rock till you get fed up. There are some additional settings that allow you to set the parameters such as the newness of recommended items and their popularity. The Filter allows you to preview the recommended items and get a taste of the song right from their website.
Continue reading “The Filter – Music, Movie and Web Video Recommendation”
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By indyan on October 14, 2008
In the days of cool and catchy names (Feisty Fawn, Jaunty Jackalope and Snow Leopard) Microsoft is going back to the basics and has decided to call its next Operating System – Windows 7. Yes, its official now. The successor to Windows Vista will be called Windows 7.
That’s how Windows started out. In the pre Windows 95 era each Windows build was known by a version number like most other softwares – ugly but sensible. Then Microsoft decided to get cool and used years in place of version number. This continued till Windows ME. Then they changed their mind again and came out with Windows 2000 only to ditch the year based naming system for their next two releases – Windows Xp and Windows Vista.
When Sinofsky took over the reigns from Jim Allchin after the Vista debacle he decided to get rid of the old naming conventions. First he ditched fancy codenames and now he has decided to go back to the version number based naming system for the final release too.
Continue reading “Windows 7 – The Successor to Windows Vista”
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By indyan on October 14, 2008
Do you remember Joost – the video streaming that promised to bring Television to your desktop? It made a big splash when it was launched. Joost invites were much sought after resource. But then something went wrong. People stopped bothering about Joost. No one wanted to download a separate piece of software to watch videos. Sites like Hulu and SurfTheChannel stole Joost’s thunder. Thanks to them people could now watch Television right from their browser. While Joost clung to it’s software based distribution system people moved on elsewhere.
Continue reading “Joost – Now Streaming to Your Browser”
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By indyan on October 13, 2008
Ever wondered how much your website is really worth? Well here are five fun tools that attempts to figure that out :
Glurk : Glurk bases your valuation on factors such as value of the domain name, Google Page Rank, Alexa Traffic Rank, Number of Incoming Links, Monthly Uniques, Monthly Pages, Years in Existence, Monthly Income etc. However, unlike most other tools in this list it doesn’t automatically pull in this data. You have to enter all the data yourself.
Sootle Website Worth : This is a rather simple tool. Just enter your website’s url and Sootle will give you an estimated value for your website. The result is merely based on the number of backlinks returned by Yahoo!.
dnScoop : dnScoop uses a number of parameters like Alexa Traffic Rank, Yahoo! backlinks, Google Page Rank and domain age to guess the value of a website. It even suggests a link value for services such as Text Link Ads.
Cubestat : Cubestat is probably the most comprehensive when it comes to analysing your website’s traffic. It makes uses of traffic data provided by Alexa, Compete and Quantcast. It also takes into account other factors like Google Page Rank and Number of Backlinks. It returns the estimated worth of the website as well as daily pageviews.
WebsiteValued : WebsiteValued uses Compete’s metrics for judging your website’s popularity. Unlike other services you have the option to enter Advertising Revenue, Sales Revenue, number of Active Subscribers and Operating Costs to help WebsiteValued make a better estimate. Unlike other services WebsiteValued doesn’t offer an exact value. Instead it returns an Upper Estimate and a Lower Estimate.
Valuation of a website is a fairly complex thing and can’t be done accurately by any automated script. Hence, do take the valuations provided by these tools with a grain of salt. If you serious about appraising a website check out this article.
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