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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Symantec, Commercial, Windows x64

Symantec release 2010 Norton security products



Little in the Windows world seems to polarize opinion like a Symantec product, and in particular one from the Norton range. Seemingly equally loved and hated by users, Norton products in recent times have grown in both functionality and size, leading many to categorize the applications as 'bloated'.

Fanboys and haters sit up and take notice, Symantec have announced the release of their 2010 range of security products, including Norton Antivirus 2010 and Norton Internet Security 2010!

In the list of new features in the 2010 range, it does seem that Symantec have taken note of the concerns of users around the size and performance of the applications, as they state:

"Symantec has made an ongoing commitment to delivering security products that are fast and light. The Norton 2010 products have maintained an eye on performance, in spite of adding significant new protection technology to the release. Independent 3rd party test lab, PassMark Software was commissioned to benchmark Symantec and top security software competitors' performance impact on key metric."

Long story short: NIS 2010 is faster than previous versions and it's less resource-intense (idling at a reported 10Mb). The once painful install has been addressed as well -- NIS installs in about a minute. Test scans under NIS turned out solid results as well: 61 seconds on an HDD and 31 on an SSD.

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Filed under: Internet, Security, Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Free Comodo Internet Security is here - screenshot tour


As a long-time fan of Comodo Firewall, I was glad to see the company developing a more complete Internet defense application. On October 28th, they released Comodo Internet Security.

Why the move? To quote from the press release, Comodo's president Melih Abdulhayoglu believes that "Safe computing on the Internet should be a right, not a privilege." He continues, "We are offering an advanced, intelligent Internet Security package at no charge in order to promote a safer, trusted Internet for everyone."

So far, I'm every bit as impressed with Internet Security as I was with their standalone firewall. Apart from rolling the usual antivirus and firewall features, Comodo's new product sports a number of interesting features and very low resource utilization.

The program's main window is uncluttered and informative, providing a vitals like the status of protection systems and updates, and the present level of network activity. It also features links to quickly lock down your system or set the program to install mode (which tells it ramp down the activity alerts temporarily).

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Filed under: Internet, Security, Windows

Windows trojan horses outnumber viri and worms 4 to 1

Anti-virus maker Sophos recently released its 2007 Security Threat Report, a State of The Union for desktop security issues which, given a full read-through makes you shudder to think of the malware and nasties your PC could run afoul of any given time.

According to the report, Windows Trojans, which sometimes go undetected for long periods of time, outnumber viruses and worms by a factor of 4 to 1. Making matters worse, some malware purveyors are becoming ever-more sneaky with the ways in which they trick users. The report explains, "[Trojan writers] continue to place traditional spyware code on individual computers. However, they are also moving strongly towards a new method in which they spam out emails offering, for example, a plug-in to view videos or pornography or even offering free bogus security applications. "

I've received several trojan emails recently posing as bogus greeting cards from unnamed acquaintances but, being a jaded computer user, I'm not easily misled. With little imagination however, It's pretty easy to see how a less savvy user could be duped into inadvertently installing a trojan of doom. Like a bad one night stand, it only takes a single mistake to find yourself in the throes with some nasty creatures. It's a chilling reminder to stay vigilant and frequently run your anti-virus software of choice.

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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