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6 - FileZilla
One of the Internet's oldest file-transfer protocols--FTP--still lives. Contrary to popular wisdom, not all files are downloaded from Web sites. Many are still downloaded from FTP servers. And many individuals and businesses continue to use FTP as a way to share files. Also, many ISPs block large files, so using FTP is a great way around that problem.
FileZilla is an excellent FTP client that combines simplicity with a robust feature set (it has just about every FTP feature you could need), and its interface is easy to use.
| Price: Free
7 - Bandwidth Monitor 2 Lite
Here's a simple, easy way to check on your current bandwidth use--both uploading and downloading--and also to track your usage over time. This freebie displays that usage in a constantly changing chart, so you can see the fluctuations in real time. It also shows you the current bandwidth use in a text display.
Bandwidth Monitor Lite is quite customizable--you can, for example, skin it, change the time span in which it measures bandwidth, and so on. Also very helpful is that it will keep logs of your bandwidth usage, so you can make comparisons over time.
| Price: Free
8 - E-Mail and IM
The Internet is all about communications--but as we all know, it is not always as easy to communicate as we would like. These downloads will help you with e-mail, instant messaging, and social networking.
eMail Tracker Pro
9 - eMail Tracker Pro
Tired of being whacked by spam? Not sure if an e-mail message that you received is legitimate, or is instead a forgery or from a scammer? Then give this program a try. It gives you a set of tools for examining any e-mail message that pops into your inbox.
The program traces an e-mail back to its true point of origin, shows you the IP address and location of the sender, and tells you whether the e-mail header was tampered with in order to fool you. In addition, it provides contact information for the domain from which the message was sent so that you can report any abuse.
In order to use eMail Tracker Pro, you'll have to copy an e-mail message's headers into the program. These headers, however, don't refer to the Subject line, From line, or such. Instead, they're something usually hidden. How you find them varies according to your e-mail software. For example, in Outlook 2007, right-click a message and select Message Options; you'll then see an Internet headers field.
One stumble I encountered: The program says that it integrates directly into Outlook, but I was unable to integrate it with Outlook 2007.
| Price: $29.95 (15-day free trial)*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,147155-page,2-c,utilities/article.html
These downloads, mostly free, will help you optimize your communications with others, improve security, and generally improve your online life.
Preston Gralla, PC World
Like most people visiting PCWorld.com, you most likely live on the Internet. And that means you need help--help with your home or business network for accessing the Internet, help with troubleshooting, help with downloading, and with e-mail, instant messaging, and security.
We've got that help for you--in 14 great downloads. Whether you need a universal messenger, a way to troubleshoot e-mail problems, or programs to keep yourself safe, downloadable software can come to the rescue.
General Networking and Internet Tools
Need to troubleshoot your network, manage your downloads, get a free alternative to the bloated Adobe Reader? Here's where to go. (And that's just the beginning of these nifty downloads.)
1 - PingInfoView
The simplest of all Internet tools is the humble ping command, which lets you use the command prompt to contact a Web site and see if it is alive and responds to your ping request. It also resolves host names to IP addresses--in other words, if you issue the command ping www.pcworld.com, it will tell you the site's associated IP address. And it also tells you the speed of the connection and response.
The free PingInfoView makes the simple ping command a lot more useful. It lets you ping multiple Web sites simultaneously, will ping the sites on any schedule you set, and displays the results in a graphical interface, rather than in a command prompt.
Is this an earth-shaking tool? Certainly not. But if you use ping at all, you'll find it a useful, worthy alternative.
| Price: Free
2 - VisualRoute 2008 Lite
Here's another update of a venerable command line Internet tool, tracert. The command line tool displays the route you take to contact a Web server or other Internet device--every hop on every server or router along the way, plus the server's or router's IP address, and how long it takes to get to each one.
This program displays all that in a visually appealing way, not just through the command line. It shows a map of every hop, and graphs it against a background that shows response times. Highlight any hop, and you'll see important details, such as packet loss and speed.
In addition, the program displays a narrative of the route, detailing whether the route has fast, average, or slow throughput, and highlighting any problems.
This version of VisualRoute is free, but a variety of for-pay versions is also available, with many extra features that display the network names of devices, test DNS services, and more.
| Price: Free
3 - Foxit Reader
What's the most annoying Internet-related application of all time? For many people, that question has a simple answer: Adobe Reader. Countless documents online are in the Acrobat format, so there's no way around it: You need Adobe Reader. But it's bloated and prone to crashes, nobody's idea of a good time.
Foxit Reader is a far better solution. It's small and loads much faster, so it doesn't take up much memory when you use it. It also doesn't seem to suffer from the same instability issues as does Adobe Reader. The program has some nice extras as well, such as the ability to embed comments. (However, when you embed comments, the page you mark up will show that you're using an evaluation version of the software. You can pay for the Pro pack to get rid of those marks, and get some other extras as well.)
Note that when I installed the program, it integrated directly into Internet Explorer as the default PDF reader, but it didn't similarly integrate into Firefox. To make it the default in Firefox, you'll have to select Tools, Options, and then click the Manage button in the File Types area. Double-click each of the files that Adobe Reader opens, and tell Firefox to use Foxit Reader instead.
| Price: Free
4 - Advanced LAN Scanner
If you're a techie and have more than one PC at work or home on a network sharing a single Internet connection, you'll welcome this freebie, which offers surprisingly powerful scanning capabilities. Use it for everything from troubleshooting Internet connections, to network configuration, to making sure your PCs are as safe as possible when they're on the Internet.
When you first run the program, you may encounter an error message, saying that a default configuration is being used. You can safely ignore that message. Simply click the scan button, and it goes to work. It looks across your network, finds all PCs on it, and then gives you quite a bit of detail about each. Besides the local IP address of each PC, you'll also find which ports on each PC are open. Armed with that information, you can use a firewall to close them down.
In addition to open and closed ports, you'll see lots more information, such as what services are running on each PC, the NetBIOS names (if any) associated with each, and even a list of users and groups on each system. If any machines have shared folders, you'll see those as well. All this data is immensely useful to those who want to keep their PCs secure, or need to troubleshoot networks or Internet connections.
Making the software all the more remarkable is that it's free.
| Price: Free
5 - FlashGet
If you live to download, this freebie is for you. It's a great download manager that will speed up the process, keep you safe, and help you organize everything that you've downloaded. Flashget makes downloads faster by using multithreading, and it lets you find downloads via many different protocols, including HTTP, FTP, eMule, and others. It's also terrific at file management, showing you all the files you've downloaded, including information about each. You'll even be able to delete downloaded files from directly in the program.
Making it even more useful is that it integrates with your browser, so whenever you download, it jumps into action. It will also pause and resume downloads, and works with your antivirus software to scan for viruses as it downloads.
| Price: Free
*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,147155-c,utilities/article.html
BitDefender, McAfee, and Kaspersky Lab top our chart, showing excellent ability to detect both known and unknown malware.
Antivirus software
1 - BitDefender 9 Standard
• Performance: Superior
• Ease of Use: Very Good
• Features: Very Good
• Price when ranked: $30
Inexpensive product received excellent scores in our performance tests, although its scan speed was sluggish.
2 - McAfee VirusScan 2006
• Performance: Superior
• Ease of Use: Very Good
• Features: Very Good
• Price when ranked: $40
Relatively good heuristics help VirusScan provide solid protection. Phone support costs $3 per minute.
3 - Kaspersky Lab Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal 5.0
• Performance: Superior
• Ease of Use: Good
• Features: Good
• Price when ranked: $40
Program had the fastest response to new malware outbreaks. Interface is clean but not exceptional.
4 - F-Secure Anti-Virus 2006
• Performance: Superior
• Ease of Use: Good
• Features: Good
• Price when ranked: $40
Solid performer responded quickly in tests and provides best breaking news on malware outbreaks.
5 - Symantec Norton AntiVirus 2006
• Performance: Good
• Ease of Use: Very Good
• Features: Very Good
• Price when ranked: $40
Veteren utility offers solid threat detection and a nice interface. Phone support costs $30 per incident.
6 - Panda Software Panda Titanium 2006 Antivirus + Antispyware
• Performance: Very Good
• Ease of Use: Good
• Features: Very Good
• Price when ranked: $50
This former Best Buy performed well, but not exceptionally, in our newest nonspyware tests.
7 - AntiVir Personal Edition Classic 6.32
• Performance: Good
• Ease of Use: Good
• Features: Fair
• Price when ranked: Free
AntiVir performed the best of the free programs, although it failed to clean several old macro viruses.
8 - Alwil Software Avast Home Edition 4.6
• Performance: Fair
• Ease of Use: Very Good
• Features: Good
• Price when ranked: Free
Free product has a slick media-player-style interface that hides some features. Scan speed
was slow in tests.
9 - Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security Security 2006
• Performance: Fair
• Ease of Use: Superior
• Features: Good
• Price when ranked: $50
Former Best Buy performed poorly in heuristics and zoo tests but has the best interface of the bunch.
10 - Grisoft AVG Free Edition 7.1
• Performance: Fair
• Ease of Use: Fair
• Features: Fair
• Price when ranked: Free
Free program has subpar heuristics and one of the clunkier interfaces among the products we tested.
*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/124475-1/article.html
From Paul Gil,
Your Guide to Internet for Beginners.
How Rogue Software Hurts Us All
1) What is “Spyware”?
Forget viruses, spam and hacker attacks..."spyware" is now the single largest problem facing internet users today. These nasty little rogue programs have become so widespread and so infectious, their volume far outstrips spam and regular viruses. The spyware problem has grown to such an immense breadth and depth, we cannot even agree on what to call it.
2) Spyware = 'Malware' Most people historically call these rogue programs "spyware".
That name comes from the 1990's where nasty little programs secretly observed and logged your web surfing habits. The spyware problem, however, has now grown into dozens of other malicious formats, including sneakware, adware, keyloggers, browser hijackers, porn servers, trojans and worms Because the spyware problem has mutated so much, we now describe spyware as part of a much larger category of rogue software called "malware" (malicious software programs). At its most basic definition, malware is when insidious little software programs covertly install themselves on your computer, and then perform secret operations without your permission. Once in place, malware programs may do hundreds of nasty things to your computer. Malware will log your keystrokes, steal your passwords, observe your browsing choices, spawn pop-up windows, send you targeted email, redirect your web browser to phishing pages, report your personal information to distant servers, and serve up pornography. This malware will operate invisibly, often without displaying itself in your Task Manager. To top it off, malware usually refuses to be uninstalled through your control panel, and requires special tools to delete them from your drive. Yes, this is a direct cousin to viruses, but with a broader portfolio of wicked intentions.
3) What does Spyware/Malware specifically do to my computer?
Malware will perform a variety of nasty activities, ranging from simple email advertising all the way to complex identity-theft and password-stealing. New nasty functions are created every week by malware programmers, but the most common malware functions are:
1. Malware steals your personal information and address book (identity theft and keystroke-logging). 2. Malware floods your browser with pop-up advertising.
3. Malware spams your inbox with advertising email.
4. Malware slows down your connection.
5. Malware hijacks your browser and redirects you to an advertising or a phishing-con web page.
6. Malware uses your computer as a secret server to broadcast pornography files.
7. Malware slows down or crashes your computer.
4) Where does Spyware/Malware come from?
Spyware/malware programs are authored by clever programmers, and then delivered to your computer through covert Internet installs. Usually, malware will piggyback on innocent-looking web page components and otherwise-benign software such as game demos, MP3 players, search toolbars, software, free subscriptions, and other things you download from the web. Subscribing to online services is especially bad for getting malware. In particular, whenever you sign up for a so-called "free" service or install new software, you must accept an "end user license agreement" (EULA). The fine print of the EULA will often include the phrase "the vendor is allowed to install third-party software on your computer". Since most users don't bother to read this EULA fine print, they naively click "accept", and install malware out of sheer ignorance.
5) What kind of personal information does Spyware/Malware steal?
This varies from the non-confidential to the extremely-personal. The malware may simply steal a listing of your MP3s or recent website visits. Malware may also harvest your email address book. At its very worst, malware will steal your banking PIN, your eBay login, and your Paypal information (aka "keystroke logging" identity theft). Yes, spyware/malware is a very serious Internet problem that threatens everyone's personal privacy, and network administrators everywhere are deeply concerned.
*** From: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/antivirusantispyware/a/malware101.htm
From Paul Gil,
Your Guide to Internet for Beginners.
How Do I Protect Myself from this 2008 Epidemic of Spyware/Malware?
Answer: Avoiding and destroying spyware is not instant, and it is not a one-time event like an inoculation. Instead, stopping spyware/malware is a long-term game that is exactly like cleaning dirt out of your home. You need constant vigilance, and a regular habit of cleaning malware out of your computer every week.
Note: Additionally, as an educated user, you must also adopt a "buyer beware" attitude whenever you install new software from the Net or even from CD...you need to read every end user license agreement on your screen before you click "accept".
Here is the checklist for detecting and destroying malware
1. Install two or three different anti-spyware programs ("spyware cleaners") on your computer, and update their definition lists regularly. Because every anti-spyware cleaner is imperfect, it is necessary to use combinations of these programs to catch the greatest breadth of malware.
Also, the anti-spyware manufacturers regularly add new entries to their "definition" lists, just like anti-virus software. Make sure to keep your spyware cleaners updated with these lists!
2. Build a weekly habit of "scan and detect". Like cleaning house, this should be done every few days. At the very least, this should be done whenever you install new software. Many anti-spyware programs can be set to automatically perform scan-and-detect nightly.
3. Carefully read every EULA (end user license agreement) before clicking "accept". If you see the phrase "3rd-party software may be installed", make sure to follow the software install with a spyware cleaning.
4. Educate yourself on the latest strains of malware. In particular, start visiting these recommended anti-spyware sites, and update yourself on the latest malicious programs.
* Antivirus/Antispyware at About
* Network Security at About
* PestPatrol.com database
* Spywareguide.com
* SpywareWarrior.com
* SurferBeware.com
* Cexx.org
5. Save your data, and backup often! As much as it sounds like broken-record preaching, backing-up is how an intelligent user prepares for the worst. Backing up means: keep your original software CDs in a safe accessible place, constantly save copies of your important work files on CD or separate drives, and presume you will actually need them one day. This way, if you ever experience the extreme spyware circumstance of having to reformat your hard drive, you can at least recover your important work.
There you go, fellow Internet users. Your lives now have an extra complexity as you add one more cleaning habit to your weekly routine. The good news is: once you build a regular scan-and-detect habit, then spyware and malware will be reduced to a mere annoyance, and you can get back to business of enjoying the internet! Personally, I think of it as having one more room in my house to dust and vacuum. Keep the faith, fellow webbies... the internet is too important to let these malware programmers win!
*** From: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/antivirusantispyware/a/malware101_2.htm
6 - FileZilla
