Privacy!

Software and articles for privacy - your privacy. Please click on Statement for our privacy policy.

Privacy means keeping your information private.

It seems everyone wants a piece of your computer, and the information stored in it.
Microsoft wants to change some of your software through automatic updates. Heavy-duty bloat-ware security suites, media players, internet search pages, and the worst offenders, the malware and viruses - all want to access the Net to share, monitor, steal your information. Most of the time the information exodus is not known to you.
How do you keep your information private?
Well, we go back to a really good firewall, which monitors, blocks, permits outgoing and incoming traffic. This is number one.
Then we need an anti-malware program, which should have an on demand scanner and real-time scanning of anything coming in or being started. A program which monitors registry settings for automatic startup of programs is good. A program which allows you to fine tune its operation would be good. A program which can rid the machine of rootkits is very important these days, ever since Sony made rootkits popular.
In my opinion, the anti-malware scanner is now more important than the antivirus program.
However, let's talk about antivirus programs.
An antivirus (A/V) program should be good at what it is supposed to do - scan for and quarantine/delete viruses. Some A/V programs also check for Worms, Trojans and the like as well. Since most viruses come in by email or rogue websites exploiting javascript in the browser (IE mostly), it makes sense that the A/V program should scan your email and web activity. It is best to get an A/V program which does it all. Unfortunately, not all A/V programs are equal. That is, some are not very good at detecting the bad stuff.
How can you know or tell the difference between the good and the bad?
You can visit sites that purport to tell the difference. Well known magazines and independant testing labs are good places to look for information.
Links are provided below to get you started. Make sure the tests are current though, and not a year old or older. Too much is happening and tests that old are meaningless.

Bear in mind that an A/V program will not catch them all, which is why you need an anti-malware specific program too. They will work side by side.
As well, what works well for one user may not work as well for another. Why? Because of computer speed, operating system, disk space, fragmentation, huge number of Temporary Internet Files, Temp folder full of junk, etc.

By the way, the item which will slow your computer down the most is your A/V software. Why? Because it checks (or should) every program being started when Windows starts up and every program you start after that. And, since most programs have helper programs in the form of DLL files, they are checked too.
So, get an A/v program which is fast, thorough and doesn't use much in the way of system resources. In other words, it should have a light footprint.
Now that kind of program limits the choices to just a few.

Articles

An interesting article about major A/V vendor panic re a Consumer Reports methodology.
Scott Finnie (Computerworld) tells this story after A/V tests he did this year.
Testing Times for Trojans - interesting article about testing antivirus, etc. programs. Long and has bibliographic references.
From Dark Reading Myth 8 of the 10 biggest myths of IT security.

Tests

At this site you see that there is no such thing as perfect A/V software. They didn't test all the A/V products.
This site offers you a series of tests to see how your A/V is doing against email threats.
Here is a page of links to reviews (you may want to disregard the ads).
Microsoft OneCare comes in last. See this article or this one (again disregard the ads).

There is much, much more for you to see, but what about the newer contenders? They are not mentioned anywhere, because they simply haven't hit the testing scene yet.
But, there are some interesting new programs available now.