A few blog posts ago, I touched upon Microsoft Security Essentials’ recent accolades from AV-Comparatives, an anti-malware testing group that compares various anti-malware solutions and ranks them accordingly. As reported, Microsoft Security Essentials is one of just two anti-malware packages — the other being F-Secure Anti-Virus 2010 — that were rated “very fast” in every test category included in the company’s comparisons.
Adding to that initial honor, AV-Comparatives has also given Microsoft Security Essentials the award for the best performance of those programs tested.? Subjecting the competing anti-maleware solutions to a variety of tests derived from real-world scenarios — downloading, extracting, copying, encoding files, application launches, etc. — gave a? clear leader in Microsoft Security Essentials.
What became most noticeable was how little Microsoft Security Essentials demanded of a system’s resources, contributing to AV-Comparative’s decision to rank it as the best-performing anti-malware solution that you can get for free. Brisk performance in every major category, while being light on resources, is reason enough to give this highly recommended anti-malware program a look — particularly when you taking into consideration that it’s free, outpacing those solutions that cost money.
Proving its mettle against the competition, Microsoft Security Essentials is a great tool to protect your computer with.
We all like to spruce things up, keeping fresh for the New Year. With that in mind, you probably want to introduce a bit of variety to your desktop, making sure to rotate your wallpaper so you?re never looking at one that begins to grow stale.
While I have hundreds of images I?ve used on my desktop over the years, I?ve always had to manually set them, finding that I usually do so when growing tired of being greeted by the same image when booting my computer up.
There?s a new application that will juggle your images and update your wallpaper, leaving your desktop fresh in 2010. Not only will this tool set a rotating schedule for your wallpaper, but it also downloads new wallpaper images from two sites ? Interfacelift and Wallpaper Stock.
Called Wallpaper Juggler, this tool is for Windows users.
Whether you?re buying a new suit for your wardrobe or hitting the roads in a shiny new car, ringing in the New Year fresh is a long held tradition for many, one that could very well apply to something as mundane as your desktop wallpaper.
If you want to keep your desktop looking fresh, you can grab Wallpaper Juggler here.
Ever visit a website, see something you?d like to print, but find that the resultant printout includes a lot of unnecessary junk that you?d rather not read? For instance, when visiting a page about the latest football scores, you probably don?t want to waste your printer ink including a bunch of advertisements for DirectTV.
Extremely easy to use, the Clippable bookmarklet clears away the extraneous stuff and leaves you with a properly formatted page that includes only that information which is relevant.
No installation is necessary, as you need only visit the site and drag the Clippable box at the bottom to your Bookmarks Toolbar, which sits right beneath your address bar. Once there, you?re able to wipe away the ads and other clutter for those times when you just want to print what you?re interested in reading.
All you need to do, after visiting the webpage you’d like to print, is click on the “Clippable” bookmarklet.
An example of its value can be seen below, where you?ll notice that we?ve taken a website about customizing Windows 7 and stripped away everything but what’s pertinent. Once cleaned up, it?s ready for printing or to be copied and pasted in whichever editor you prefer.
Before Clippable:
After Clippable:
Should you be someone looking for a simple way to clean up those webpages you’d like to print or copy, give Clippable a shot.
In this age of social networking, where making the public privy to the happenings of our personal life has become something of an industry, picture sharing is as common as sending emails. Whether you?re uploading a picture to Facebook or any number of the other sites you frequent, it?s important to pay close attention to the size of the pic you?re uploading, many of these sites placing restrictions on the size of the picture you?re sharing.
In the past, resizing pictures was something you did manually, using one of the various photo editors that included a feature for that purpose. Now, there?s a tool that runs in the background, automatically resizing your photos whenever you? upload them.
It?s a free utility called Shrink Pic, and it?s an extremely convenient tool for those who frequently upload or attach photos. It monitors your uploading, silently resizing the picture whenever you upload, attach or ? if transmitting via an Instant Messing client ? send it.
According to the definitions you set before using it, Shrink Pic automatically resizes the images, uploading the compressed image once it?s complete. Even if you?re uploading multiple pictures, which can be the case when using Facebook, Shrink Pic works to resize every last one. It moves fast, too, working almost instantly.
Shrink Pic doesn?t touch your original picture, moving the resized pictures to a temporary directory. If you want to disable the program, you need only deactivate it with an option available in the system tray.
Free and available for Windows only, Shrink Pic can be downloaded here.
Suffering a bit of a delay, Firefox 3.6 ? currently in its 5th beta, which can be obtained here ? has been pushed to the first quarter of 2010. Its successor, Firefox 4.0,? is scheduled to enter beta testing next summer, with its final form slated for release in the winter of 2010. Recently overtaking Microsoft?s Internet Explorer as the most popular web browser, Firefox has charged to the front of the pack, a result of its extensive flexibility and Mozilla?s vigilant attention to security.
As Mozilla continues to improve upon their award-winning browser, Computer Geeks will update you on the changes they introduce.
If you use either Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010 or McAfee Virus Scan Plus 2010, you might be interested in knowing that a recent report by AV-Comparatives — an Austrian non-profit that assesses differences between anti-virus software, informing the public of their findings — concludes that Microsoft Security Essentials runs faster than the two aforementioned competitors.
Still, Microsoft Security Essentials placed 6th overall amongst 16 products tested by the firm. Coming in at the 8 spot was Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010, while McAfee VirusScan Plus 2010 came in 10th place. Microsoft Security Essentials was rated “very fast” in every test category, with just one other anti-virus program — F-Secure Anti-Virus 2010 — qualifiying for the “very fast” honor in every test category.
This is of particular significance for those of you looking to install a security solution that doesn’t hinder the performance of your computer, a problem that persists with many anti-virus programs.
Microsoft Security Essentials has received high marks for its relative lack of bloat and fast performance. More enticing, Microsoft Security Essentials is free, making it the superior alternative to anti-virus solutions that are both costly and less efficient.
