Favorite Files

1. FireTune

Recent Posts

1. 
   Review - ThreatFire

   3.5.0.21 (Sep 1, 2008)

   Does not poorly affect system performance as it did with the last version I tried. Now includes full on-demand scan for all threats instead of just for rootkits, and a scan can be scheduled. However, the on-demand scan detected some false positives with some compiled AutoHotkey scripts. The default protection setting at 3 of 5 still seems overzealous to me, and I set it at 2 of 5.

2. 
   Review - avast! Home

   4.8.1229 (Sep 1, 2008)

   PROS: Impact on system performance is much improved over the earlier version I last tried: I haven't noticed any impact on system performance.* Web Shield does not slow down browsing, nor does Network Shield. Scanning within archives allows for scanning within many types of file containers, such as 7z and MSI. Update check is frequent (by default, 3 hours). Screensaver module is useful and highly customizable; can be combined with similar screensaver utilities such as JkDefrag. Spyware protection is integrated, and Web Shield provides additional protection for downloading. Scanning for rootkits is part of standard scan.
   
   CONS: *I chose to tweak many of the settings: turning off scanning memory during startup, disabling skins, deselecting some Shield modules from install, disabling Standard Shield from scanning applications and DLL's on load, removing update and VRDB notifications, disabling tray icon animation, disabling sound effects, and combining the VRDB and main icons. Seems to not include behavior-based protection, but Avast plays well with Threatfire. Avast has no scheduled scanning (except screensaver module), but Threatfire does.
   
   Bottom Line: After tweaking settings for performance and to reduce annoyances, I'm very pleased with Avast, especially in conjunction with Threatfire.

3. 
   Review - Comodo BOClean

   4.25 (Apr 17, 2008)

   Some testimonials of Comodo BOClean praise it for finding malware their antivirus missed. Well, after it shut down a program I myself made because it said it was a trojan, I wonder if the malware BOClean finds are too often false positives. I believe Comodo should provide data on the risk of false positives and otherwise improve BOClean's sensitivity.

4. 
   Review - ThreatFire

   3.0.14 (Apr 17, 2008)

   Behavior-based anti-malware might be the future of antivirus, and Threatfire is a free offering in this regard. However, it has a dealbreaker flaw in that the "ignore" feature after a suspected risk is detected does not work well. I noticed problems even after having set certain programs to be "ignored." Ignore would stop the prompts, but the scanning would continue, and I got data corruption. More specifically, programs that produced files (AutoHotkey's compiler, Audacity 1.3 batch processing), would make corrupted files unless Threatfire was fully suspended. Until Threatfire can stop itself from interfering with the processes the user specifies, I won't be using it. On the plus side, I contacted PC Tools about these issues, and they said they would fix the bug and post about it on their forums. Once they do so, I'd be willing to re-rate Threatfire.
   
   Short Amendment: It is not free (in fact, it's a relatively steep $29.95), but I prefer Mamutu to Threatfire-- Mamutu makes more sense to use and it doesn't (so far) interfere with my computer usage.

5. 
   Review - Microsoft Windows Search for Windows XP / Server 2003

   3.01 (Jan 10, 2008)

   There are unclear and unavoidable linkages to file attributes that folders/files are available for indexing and to the Windows XP Indexing Service. WDS should just replace the Indexing Service and the user-unfriendly attribute controls, but it seems to need it. Also, file attributes need to be set before you can include or exclude folders for WDS indexing. Troubleshooting is complicated (there's a weird mmc for controlling the Indexing Service, and I have no idea how this impacts WDS). At any rate, I could not get it to index all the files I wanted it to. It especially had a problem with indexing files that were encrypted with efs. Copernic Desktop Search is so much easier, that I'd rather use that even though it doesn't integrate directly into Outlook 2007.