NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, September 2010
President' Corner
by Wes Eckles, President
alert@ieee.org
(click to email author)

Earlier this year I gave a program about Anti-malware Utilities and their rankings. During the year anti- malware vendors improve and modify their utilities to account for the thousands of bad things that are blasted at the users on the internet.

The bad guys have almost left the virus method for more hard to detect and to remove malware: root kits, spyware, and poison pills added to programs on your computer. The game now is to get your personal data and steal your money and ID.

I checked the ratings listed on four sources. The four sources used different methods to rank the utilities. The sources I reviewed are:

A: http://www.FIND.PCWORLD.COM/69890,

B: http://WWW.CONSUMERREPORTS.ORG (Subscription Required),

C: http://www.ANTI-VIRUS-SOFTWARE-REVIEW.TOPTENREVIEWS.COM/INDE X.HTML,

D: http://PCMAG.COM/CATEGORY2/02806,482900/ASP

You can go to the sites listed above and get the ratings of most anti- malware utilities. Here are the 1st place ratings for the paid security suits and rating source by letter:

A- B: Symantec Norton Security 2010, C: Bit Defender av, D: Webroot Anti-virus with Spy Sweeper 2011.

Following are the 2nd place rated for the paid security suits and rating source by letter:

A- C-D: Kaspersky Internet Security 2011, B: Bit Definder Internet Security 2010.

Source B gave these free utilities 1st & 2nd ranking respectively:

AVIRA Antivir Personal 10 and Microsoft Security Essentials.

You can find prices, sources for purchase, and other details about these utilities by entering the utility name in Google Internet search.

Free MS Office -

Microsoft's recently released Word Web App, which is one of the several Office utilities now available for free at http://www.live.com . Since these applications are online, they can be accessed from anywhere the user has internet access, and are utilized in a browser window. From the live.com webpage, the office applications can be utilized by clicking on the "Office" link at the top of the page. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote are currently available.

Registration is required in order to use the Microsoft Live utilities, but registration is fast and free. For those users who may need access to the primary components of Microsoft Office, but do not have it installed on their computers, this service from Live is a viable alternative.

Be sure to double check your email address listed in the NEWSLETTER. Email corrections to BILL.SHOOK@COX.NET.

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