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It’s going to be year 2008 very soon and we should give ourselves some great beginning so that we can achieve more throughout the year. Well, I’ve decided to share with you several important and useful softwares which I have used and trusted . =)
Antivirus - Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic
Considered to be one of the most powerful antivirus software in the market. AntiVir has high detection rates while operating under a significantly low resources environment. It also has a built in rootkit detection tool, which could eradicate stealthy malware before any harm can be done to the core system files. If you are afraid of being infected by new and unknown viruses, you can always increase its heuristic signature detection threshold to a higher level.
Antivirus - avast! 4 Home Edition
Avast! 4 Home Edition is another powerful antivirus software in the market. Like AntiVir it has a low resources demand. It has a very intuitive user interface, even a novice will know how to operate it without any detail guidance. Avast! 4 Home Edition comes with P2P and IM Shields, Network Shield and Web Shield to cater for the ever increasing threat of virus attacks. The Virus Recovery Database (VRDB) feature allows damaged / infected files to be restored to its original state. This serves as a secondary line of defense if the virus manage to penetrate and wreak havoc in your system files.
Antispyware - Spyware Terminator
Spyware Terminator is considered to be a very effective detection and removal tool in the free software category. The scan is fast and uses less resources. It has an integrated antivirus module for further security enhancement. All the shields are in real time and the Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS) protects a computer from execution of undefined threats that can infiltrate your system though any of a host of security holes. Removal of malware is fairly easy as the user is given the alternative to remove the worm without rebooting the system.
Firewall - Comodo Firewall Pro
Comodo Firewall Pro is effective in blocking internal and external attacks, internet access to malicious Trojan programs and safeguards your Personal data against theft. Comodo Firewall Pro also havs A-VSMART prevention technology which is a next generation Antivirus, Spyware, Malware, Rootkits and Trojans (VSMART) platform that prevents harmful applications from getting installed on your system. It also has the HIPS funtion while monitoring traffic in real time. What makes Comodo Firewall Pro so special is that it uses significantly less resources than Zone Alarm Free Firewall, thus retuning more system performance to the user.
Registry Cleaner - TweakNow RegCleaner Standard
Windows performance will degrade from time to time due to installing / uninstalling of softwares, improper shutdowns etc. TweakNow RegCleaner Standard detects and fixes broken registry keys and backs up the registry so it can roll back changes if something goes wrong. This useful tool is small and simple and scans pretty fast for errors.
Registry Defrag - Auslogics Registry Defrag
Like fragmented files on hard disk, fragmented registry will slow down the speed of computer significantly. Auslogics Registry Defrag will scan through the registry to remove slack spaces, reducing the registry size and ultimately the amount of RAM the registry takes up, and improving your computer performance.
Disk Defrag - Auslogics Disk Defrag
Auslogics Disk Defrag is more powerful than the default Windows Disk Defragmenter. It has a nice user interface with colourful indicator. Use this to speed up file read / write time and overall computer performance.
Currently I have a running combination of AntiVir + Avast + Spyware Terminator + Comodo Firewall Pro. Well, such combination is more than enough to protect my laptop in every aspects effectively, which of course at the cost of slightly slower system performance. I have 1.5Gb of DDR2 RAM so basically I don’t feel any major slow downs.
I’m not sure if AntiVir and Avast can be used together for out of 7 scanners from Avast, only 4 scanners (Internet Mail, Network Shield, Web Shield and Outlook / Exchange) are allowed to be active. If you wish to install more than 1 set of AV, my advice is that you pick the most powerful one as your primary defense, then proceed to the secondary defense as most of the time the primary AV will limit the functions of secondary AV due to incompatibility issues. Other than that, everything works fine and I don’t have any crashes happening on my laptop.
Once you have all the system performance related tools installed, please run all the tests / diagnoses at least once a week to ensure your system is running at top speed.
Well, I have been using all the above software for many months already and hopefully these goodies will serve you faithfully throughout year 2008. =)
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