Computer Spot

With the newspapers full of accounts to do with how children keep indulging in lurid messaging (that they call sexting) and bullying each other over the Internet, parents are completely worried.

What kind of Internet protection for kids is out there that can help them keep track and keep an eye on everything? How do they protect their children from making these kinds of mistakes and from being victims too?

This kind of parental software is quite new. And already, one out of two children has seen software of some kind sent after him that keeps tabs on his activities online. And it’s a growing market too. Only about three years ago, barely 15% of parents did this.

Of course, we’ve always had parental supervision software to keep an eye on our children’s activities on the computer. These days though, the home computer is old news. It’s the iPad and the smartphone that the young do all of their online work on – on Facebook and everything else.

Internet protection for kids though, doesn’t come cheap. It can cost as much as $80 a year. And for that, there is a lot they promise to do.

They’ll completely keep abreast of everything your child posts online and everything that shows up on your child’s social networking pages.

The surprising thing though is that it doesn’t matter where a child goes to access his social network – even a friend’s house. The software is completely able to keep track of everything.

The good thing is that these programs don’t attempt to spy on your child. In most cases, they work with your child’s permission and full knowledge.

These programs, by companies like Trend Micro and Symantec, want to make it clear to children that they truly are at risk and they need their parents help staying safe.

It’s so easy for children to do what the next child is doing – send graphic messages that they’ll regret one day or participate in bullying that they might get expelled for. The more you pay for these services, the more control you typically get.

Trend Micro’s $50-a-year offering will keep an eye out on all the imagery that goes in and out of your child’s online accounts and they will even keep an eye out for unpleasant keywords search for. Zone Alarm’s product costs $20 a year, and it will keep an eye on your child’s Facebook account for you. They will let you block unsafe chat rooms and do a number of other things.

If you know your tech really well, you can easily access a few free online resources to put together your own Internet protection for kids from sources such as Minor Monitor as well.

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How often do you use your personal computer? More than likely you make use of this handy resource on a daily basis. Moreover, you probably have more than one PC or Mac in your home that gets used every day.

At this point, most people simply cannot function on a day-today basis without their trust computers at their side. Since these advanced little machines are so extremely important for routine rituals and chores, it is naturally important to keep your PC healthy and running properly.

After all, it is not worth much if it can’t perform how you want it to. This means that you may require free computer virus protection to stay on the safe side.

Think about all of the sites and email addresses you come in contact on a daily basis. Whether you realize it or not, all of these can have an impact on your computer’s safety. Read the rest of this entry →

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Of course, if you think of free antivirus protection, you think of AVG if you want to go outside the family; or you think Microsoft’s Security Essentials if you want to think local.

If you want to cut down on the cost of your computer build by $50 or so a year, doing it with your choice of antivirus, is a great way to go.

But there is so much choice out there, some would say even more choice than you would if you were looking to pay money for your antivirus needs.

The best free antivirus protection out there can be basically indistinguishable from the paid ones in most areas that count. So what do you think could be missing?

The first thing to go in a free program is support. If you have trouble installing it, or with determining what to do if it says that it is unable to remove something, who do you call?

With free software, you call your geek friend, if you are lucky enough to have one. But there are a few enterprises out there that do give you limited e-mail or forum support.

Avast and Microsoft Security Essentials for example give you free e-mail support; AVG  does give you the option to use their toll number to call support.

Just one small catch there though, it costs $50 a call – which is more than you would pay for the program itself. But maybe limited or no support is no real deterrent; usually, for the reasonably educated user, very little goes wrong that they would actually need help with. And if they do, they can always go to an online forum and ask.

The other thing with free antivirus protection is the question whether it updates itself as regularly as the paid version. As a general rule, the free ones don’t check with the update server as often as the paid ones.

If you do happen to have the bad luck to come upon one of the newest viruses out there in between updates, you would be in trouble.

But no one actually has that kind of spectacular bad luck, that the newest virus out there should get to you in the one day it takes your antivirus to update itself.

But here too, the free ones are all caught up; Microsoft Security Essentials, if it is not up-to-date, and still comes across something it finds suspicious, will get online to check it out.

Panda antivirus will do the same. Paid ones will give you some extra computer scanning features, and will look out for you on your chat client too; and of course there is always the benefit that you don’t get the annoying “Do you want to install the Ask Toolbar” option,  when you install.

But really, this is just quibbling and splitting hairs. You get to save about $50 every year, using free antivirus protection, and that is not a bad deal. If you choose Microsoft Security Essentials, it might be even a better deal.

What do I think is the best free antivirus protection out there? The word to the street today is that Avira Antivir Personal is the real winner.

Its malware protection is second to none, it is fast in its scanning, and it doesn’t seem to slow down the computer as much. But it can be a bit tedious the way its user interface is designed.

And the same goes for Avast. These days AVG is particularly popular, but the protection does seem a little off. Microsoft Security Essentials is really good too.

The Panda Cloud antivirus does need a closer look; it uses a new approach entirely, going online every single time to search for virus definitions on its servers.

But this is kind of a new approach, and one needs a little more time to understand it properly. Free antivirus protection has really come of age now; if you ask me, you really can put your money away now.

It’s possible and more comfortable to create a custom collection of more frequent changes to the registry. A registry file Reg, is basically a text file, in which the first line, the version appearing in the register, which in the case of Windows XP is Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00, keys and values.

To create this custom collection, export in Notepad registry keys changed along with the values ??and save the file with Reg To quickly change the settings, you may want to save two copies of the Reg file: inserts the value in an activation a function (1) and with the corresponding value for the decommissioning (0). Almost all changes to the registry requires a reboot.

In order not to run the risk of inadvertently start reg file, they can be associated with the text editor: Select the Tools menu in Windows Explorer / Folder Options and File Types. Scroll down the list until you see the Reg file, click Change and choose which application to associate such as Notepad. In this way, the Reg files are no longer performed only with a double click, but are only displayed.

Some programs can make changes in the log database and file system, so it is essential to protect the registry and system files from unauthorized access by malicious or not. A good keeper can be Winpatrol Free ( www.winpatrol.com ) which, besides protecting the registry and files: alerts you of changes to the hosts file, making harmless extraneous processes, spyware, adware and executions of the modified files.

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There is a worrying phenomenon making it’s way around the walls of your Facebook friends, and it risks infecting your computer with malware and viruses. The phenomenon is called clickjacking.

Clickjacking is a scam wherein your friends are tricked into clicking a link. When they do this, a link will be placed on their Facebook wall, to trick others into clicking.

The click through from your friend’s wall will lead you to a second page, where a video may be played, or images shown.

Sometimes the videos will contain a virus, or else there may be a fake, overlaid page that is invisible. When you click on the ‘play’ button you are actually clicking another button on the invisible page, which may then be used to take your money, make you buy something through a logged in Amazon or eBay account, or which may steal your information. Read the rest of this entry →

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On November 1st, Microsoft took an unusual move throughout the USA. They started offering their Microsoft Security Essentials software when their automatic Windows update ran.

This move has computer security companies Trend Micro and Panda complaining. These two companies offer competing anti-virus software suites, which they seem to feel will suffer as a result of this move.

Microsoft uses a facility called the ‘action center’ to monitor certain aspects of your computer. One of those is whether or not you have any anti-virus software running. If you don’t, the action center will now offer you their own anti-virus software when your regular Windows update runs.

The reason that they claim they are doing this, is that despite the fact that there are so many free anti-virus software suites available today, many people still choose to take the risk and go without.

These people, for whatever reason, have nothing installed and as a result are likely to quickly become infected with viruses and other malware. Read the rest of this entry →

In the computer age of today, anti virus computer software is perhaps the most important thing you can get for your computer.

There are few things worse for people today, than the possibility that a virus may be transmitted to your computer, but if a virus harms or wipes out your hard drive, you are lost.

This is not just an issue for people who do most of their work on computers, but for everyone. Indeed today, many people have sentimental files and photos that if they were lost would be gone forever. Read the rest of this entry →

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If you own a computer, you should be aware of the dangers posed by people secretively installing spyware computer software on your computer.

Are you familiar with them? This form of privacy violation is not only a crime in most places, but it has become one of the leading security issues with computers and can pose a big risk to your personal information.

Unbeknownst to many people, spyware computer software is software that can be installed onto a computer by an outside user and used to collect personal and other valuable information stored. Read the rest of this entry →

If there is one thing that people like it is something that is available to them for free. This especially goes for computer software.

Various places offer free software programs for people on a trial period or shareware versions of products that are free. These can range from business products to games. There are many places that you can visit and start downloading computer software off the Internet.

CNet’s Download.com is one of the world’s top places to go for downloading computer software off the Internet. They have different types of software on this site.

These programs include developer tools, web browsers, spyware and virus protection programs and drivers for hardware programs. Some fun software, like screensavers or games, can be found on Download.com too. Read the rest of this entry →

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