Lenawee PC Users Group
met Monday, May 11th, in the Lenawee County Library meeting room, starting at
6:00
P.M. and ending at 7:45 P.M. There were 16 members present.
There were two
presentations. Bob Warwick discussed the recommendations of Consumer
Reports for security software. They stated that several free programs
provide better security than most of the commercial suites. Bob tested the
recommended software and found that the anti-virus program detected a
particularly bad "Begal" trojan that McAfee missed. The
software they recommend is Avira for virus detection and blocking, Microsoft
Windows Defender for spyware Etc. and Spamfighter to eliminate most spam from
your inbox. Bob also recommended turning off Windows XP firewall and using
Zone
Alarm. The article appears below with links to the various software
providers.
Failing
to keep your computer safe from online threats can shorten its life and lead to
the theft or corruption of data, including sensitive personal information. Yet
our 2009 State of the Net Survey shows that 35 percent of U.S. households don't
use software to guard against inadvertently downloading "badware,"
including programs that spy on your online activity, and 18 percent don't use a
program to block potentially destructive online viruses.
If
you've been avoiding security software because of its cost, our latest tests
bring good news: There are fine, free programs to protect against viruses,
badware, and unwanted e-mail spam.
Of
the seven free software programs we tested this year, the best (from Avira,
Microsoft,
and Spamfighter)
are the same no-cost programs we recommended last year, though all three
performed notably better than their 2008 versions did. They were on par with the
best pay suites we tested. Even the less effective among them (Alwil Avast and
AVG antivirus, and Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Safer Networking Spybot antibadware)
proved no worse than the lowest-scoring pay suites.
We
evaluate free and pay software with actual threats we capture on the Web and
some that we modify to represent threats too new to have been discovered. The
best programs this year detected 80 percent or more of the modified threats and
updated their databases within a day or two to detect all the actual threats.
The worst program detected no more than 70 percent of the modified viruses and
detected few of the actual threats within our test period."
Paul Hover
showed us an electronic device that was from a book "Cure for all
Diseases". Basically it was an oscillator that produced very low high
frequency current. Just shows you that the old snake oil cures are still
around in the 21st century. He also showed us a website, quackwatch.com,
that debunks the thousands of "cures" for every ailment.
During our
question and answer period, we discussed the new Windows 7 which was released
this week for wide trial testing by anyone brave enough to give it a try.
It appears to be based on Vista technology with more emphasis on integrating
personal computing into the larger area of home entertainment. No one in
the group has given it a road test yet, though a few of us have downloaded the
operating system.
The
LPCUG meets monthly on the third Monday at 6:00 P.M. in the Lenawee County
Library meeting room and everyone from the computer novice to the expert is welcomed. The club website can be easily be found simply by
Googling the “Lenawee PC”. Anyone with an interest in learning more about computers
is invited to attend the meetings. We usually have a question
and answer session and a main program. Come join the fun! Note:
the May meeting was our last meeting before Summer break. Our next meeting
will be on September 21st and the program will be our annual net security
program.
