Anti Virus Comments

 So you just bought a new computer and have used up your 90 day anti virus software trial and don't want to spend any more money on it so you have decided to put a free one on your machine. Be forewarned your mileage will vary on what you decide to put on. What I am seeing out in the public is for the most part people are using AVG Free, which I cannot recommend for the following reasons. Back when it was in the 7.0 and 7.5 versions it was decent I will say that but the newer version has brought on issues with your computer slowing down and not being able to really remove maleware very well. Sure it will detect them all day long but you can never remove them. Also from a technician point of view I have to use a special program to actually remove avg from your computer because the standard un-install if it works at all never removes the whole thing. So what do I suggest in the free arena? I can and do push two programs Avast Home Edition and Avira. Both run without 99 pop ups and in this IT mans opinion are much better than some of the pay for versions ( Norton especially). Both programs use little resources in the background so your computer does not bog down when running your normal everyday applications. They both detect/block and remove all the nasty bugs and the virus definitions are updated often.

 But if you are more of the I want the best out there and do not trust the "free" software on the net I can suggest a few that really stand up and are rated tops.  1) Kaspersky Internet Security, and 2) Bit Defender are the best of the best.  One word of caution when "doing your homework" looking around for reviews on anti virus products or things of this nature.  Many of the so called reviews sites are actually in bed with a certain company and do not give you the real scoops on products. Even some of the big computer magazines fall into this realm. So really take things with a grain of salt do a ton of asking around and read the user reviews which really can tell you more about the product than some writer that works for a magazine. Good Luck and remember you must have some sort of protection on your computer thats up to date or you are just inviting bad things to happen.  And just because you have a good anti virus program does not mean you are bullet proof on the net. No one is......

What Browser does Candid Recommend?

First and foremost I tell all our customers to not use Internet Explorer for the simple reason it always gets hacked and has many holes. Although Microsoft is pretty good at coming up with fixes why bother if you can have a more secure browser. So I tell everyone to go with FireFox. Its much more secure has add-ons that really work and its a much more safe way to browse the Internet. But here comes Google Chrome last year...  I do find myself using it often but still end up using Firefox for my default browser. Bottom line without going into a bunch of geek speak is use Firefox.  There is nothing wrong if you choose Chrome as your default but its still the new kid on the block and in my eyes not proved itself. With that being said it is a bit faster loading up pages than Firefox but if safety is an issue and you can wait those few more milliseconds stay with Firefox.

Anti Virus Products on Usb drives

It appears that antivirus companies have begun to sell their products on USB thumb drives. This is a great idea now that Netbooks are more common since many of them don’t have an optical drive. In fact, some antivirus companies such as Panda Security are making a Netbook specific versions of their antivirus products which are lighter on resources and come on a USB drive.Another great thing about antivirus products coming on a USB drive is that the installation of the antivirus product (which usually takes ages) would happen much faster, since it is usually much faster than installing something from a CD.Lastly, at the end of the day the customer is left with a USB drive which they could use for other purposes.

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