Written November 2009
by Cliff Feldwick
Time for a few more roses (and bricks) for those deserving them.
A Dell tech tipped me to this program, and it has proved a wonder in finding those hidden Trojans and spyware that make your computer hesitate, give random errors and otherwise make you want to give it a gravity test (open window, insert computer, close window – yep, gravity still works). It’s MalwareBytes, available as a free-for-personal-use download from www.malwarebytes.org. The free version does a scan that often finds things after Norton and others say everything is clean. You have to pay for the version that stays resident and prevents new infections, but the free one run periodically will reveal many toxic things. Highly recommended.
Another free for private use tool is AVG Free, an anti-virus and spyware program, firewall, etc, that beats many paid programs hands-down. It’s available at http://free.avg.com, and may keep you from many expressions of hatred about computers in general. Again, highly recommended.
Now the bricks
If you Google MalwareBytes or AVG, you will find the real sites surrounded by paid sponsors that are sometimes real traps. For instance, googling MalwareBytes brings up an ad for “Malware Anti-Malware Free”, which has been identified by numerous security sites as malware that attempts to hijack your system and hold it for ransom. Why Google takes ads from these people is a good question – do they have a responsibility to vet these ads?
So care is required. Remember to read things very, very carefully – if a site has a “Click here to clean up your drivers” or “Click here to check for system problems” button, you can bet the homestead that you’re going to be directed to a paid program that promises miracles and delivers … whatever. So don’t go there.
Another way to get reliable downloads is to use a collection site that is trustworthy. I recommend download.cnet.com. It often shows up when googling things like AVG, and gives you a direct link. Again, they will have paid ads on the side that are distractions. Stay with your original intent and ignore the imitations.
Oh, and a continuing brick for Norton 360, probably one of the worst versions of Norton Anti-Virus ever published. Use anything else.
Microsoft weighs in
In October, Microsoft came into the game with a free Anti-Virus and spyware program called Security Essentials. It replaces the gone-but-not-lamented Windows Live OneCare, and is extremely simple to use. As always, their marketing is top notch – videos and download instructions, pictures of smiling people, etc, all available at http://Microsoft.com/security_essentials. How’s the product? Still too early to tell. But MS released Windows Defender some years ago as a pretty good anti-spyware product and there are still a host of others out there, so the MS brand is not an automatic winner. Maybe too many of us remember their firewall – in a wonderful parody, there was a picture of a massive gate, covered with locks and marked “Microsoft Firewall”, with no fence on either side of it. However, if you need a security product, free, you can give it a try. Will a free product, especially one from the 800 pound gorilla of MS, put the others out of business? Ought to be interesting.
Another rose
If you’re using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer (another recommended move), you can block some of the ads prevalent on download sites by installing an add-in called “Adblock Plus for Firefox”. After installing it, even the paid ads on the right side of Google disappear. Sweet. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
Peanut Breath
OK, so there’s an elephant in the room I’m not discussing: Windows 7. By now it has been released and there are ads running, splashy posters up in Best Buy, computer manufacturers everywhere saying “We recommend Windows7!” – in other words, the usual hype. So how is it? Again – too soon to tell. Despite it being available in beta form for months, and lots of free copies given to computer magazines, the real rubber-meets-the-road comes when actual people (not techies and magazine writers) try to use it for everyday tasks, especially with software they already own and feel comfortable using. Remember that Vista was highly regarded by the reviewer crowd when it premiered, only to fall to “what were they thinking?” status when lots of people tried to use it. If you must buy a computer now and are going to be doing the usual 90% of computer work (e-mail, web surfing and using Word), you’re probably fine. Otherwise, cool it for a month and listen to real feedback. Most of the heavily competitive computer pricing comes right at the holidays anyway, so that could be a good time.