3 out of 4 doctors recommend reading Download Squad every day. But if you've been a bit too busy to keep up, here are a few of our favorite stories from the past week. Read them over and call us in the morning if you don't feel better.

• Lesser known weapons to trick out your malware arsenal
  You probably know all the big names in antivirus, anti-spyware behavior. But just because companies like Norton, Symantec, McAfee, Spybot, and AdAware get all the attention doesn't mean they're the only games in town. We have a roundup of some of our favorite anti-malware applications you probably haven't heard of, but should definitely check out.
• 10 tools to pimp out your FriendFeed
  Apparently we've been feeling all listy this week, because in addition to a list of anti-malware tools, we published a list of 10 tools to spruce up your FriendFeed page. Whether you want to filter the info that shows up in FriendFeed, or to read FriendFeed on your mobile phone, we've got you covered.
• VLC Media Player 0.9.0 pre-release adds Last.fm support and more
  VLC is already one of the most full-featured video players around. And it happens to be free and open source to boot. This week the developers pushed out a preview version of VLC 0.9.0 with one new killer feature: integrated support for streaming music service Last.fm.
• Ask DLS: Web browsing for the color blind
  Between 8 and 10 percent of males have some degree of color-blindness, but surprisingly few web designers take this into account. If you have problems distinguishing colors on web pages, you might want to check out the Colorblind Web Page Filter, which attempts to adjust the color scheme of any web site to make it easier to read based on the type of colorblindness you experience.
• Opera Mobile 9.5 beta released
  Opera is doing its part to keep Windows Mobile users from throwing jealous glances at their iPhone-owning friends. Opera Mobile 9.5 beta hit the streets this week, and it offers a Mobile Safari-like drag, drop and zoom interface, super-fast page rendering, and other features to make browsing on a handheld device just a little bit more pleasant.

Lavasoft has released Ad-Aware 2008, the latest version of the company's popular anti-spyware utility for Windows. Ad-Aware 2008 comes in Free, Plus, and Pro varieties. The free version lacks real-time spyware detection, scheduled scans, tech support, and anti-virus software. But it still does a pretty good job of finding spyware on your system,

The latest version boasts quicker updates and scans, lower resource usage, and an enhanced rootkit removal system. Ad-Aware Plus will set you back $26.95. For $39.95 you can get Ad-Ware Pro, which also adds command line support, a process watch module, and network drive scanning. If you're not sure which version provides the features you need, you can check out the comparison chart.

Or you can rely on other free anti-spyware utilities like Spybot or Windows Defender.

[via Sizzled Core]

A few months ago, Grisoft updated its AVG anti-virus suite to version 8 and bundled linkscanning, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit software to boot. Now Grisoft's popular freeware anti-virus application is getting some of the same features. AVG Free 8 is out, and not only does it protect your system from viruses, but you get spyware detection as well.

AVG Free 8 doesn't have all of the features you get in the commercial version of the application. There's no rootkit protection or linkscanner. And there's no email or instant messaging integration. For those features you'll have to shell out $35 or $55 for the standard or "internet security" versions. But as freeware antivirus applications go, AVG is packed with features like real-time protection, daily updates, and complete system scans at regularly scheduled intervals.

Update: As several readers have pointed out in the comments, when you install AVG Free 8, you will likely find a bunch of advanced features like linkscanning and email protection. The AVG web site has a comparison chart showing that these features are included in the commercial version but not the free version. It's not clear if Grisoft is including free trials of these functions or if the chart is wrong.

Yesterday Microsoft released Windows Defender Beta 2, formerly Windows Anti-Spyware, and it's now available for download from Microsoft. The new version of the anti-spyware software features a redesigned and simplified UI, a new spyware detection engine, and the ability to run without administrator privileges. If you want to see screenshots of the new release, one blogger has posted a bunch here.

[Via Digg]

The Washington Post's Brian Krebs is reporting that a recent update to Microsoft Anti-Spyware "flags [Norton Anti-Virus] as a password-stealing program and prompts users to remove it." If the user removes the files as instructed by Anti-Spyware, Norton Anti-Virus ceases to function and cannot be reinstalled without some dicey registry editing. Oops. Microsoft says it's working on a fix for the problem.