Are you still writing down your passwords on slips of paper and Post-it notes?

You know you shouldn’t be doing that, so SplashID is an easy sell. SplashID stores your passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal data within an encrypted filestore. It also syncs with your Windows Mobile, Palm, or Blackberry handhelds, and stores your data within an encrypted filestore in your portable device, too. There’s no longer a need to be without your passwords.

Tags: Software

There are three top-notch antivirus programs available, and this year it’s NOD32’s turn to shine. Its detection rates are every bit as good as Norton AV 2008 and Kaspersky, but its memory and CPU footprint are basically negligible compared to the competition.

It isn’t quite as comprehensive as its competition, but if you need to protect a gaming machine or older computer from today’s viruses and want to keep those PCs fast, NOD32 is your best choice.

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In a world filled with malicious programs, emails, and Web sites, protecting your system is important. Consequently, many of us yearn for a security suite that provides full protection with little or no input. AVG Internet Security 8.0 comes close, providing a robust, multi-layered defense against virtually all of the digital goons lurking in the shadows.

For a price slightly higher than many competitors, you enjoy protection against incoming and resident viruses, malware, spam, phishing sites, and drive-by downloads, plus a firewall and deep-level system protection against such threats as rootkits.

Installation of AVG 8.0 is easy, with the setup utility explaining its behavior as it goes. It gives you input on important decisions, such as selecting the working environment where you use the PC for example, standalone, network, or mobile. It thoughtfully allows you to select more than one, too; good of you have a notebook you use on the road and at home.

AVG 8.0 also lets you choose a scan schedule, whether or not to report questionable Web pages, and whether or not to install the AVG Security Toolbar. This toolbar, which includes a Yahoo! search interface, installs in your browser. It lets you turn the Active Surf-Shield and Search-Shield on or off: two utilities that examine and rate Web sites and search results for potential threats.

Whether or not you install the AVG Security Toolbar, AVG and the underlying LinkScanner technology will work in the background, examining links online, in emails, bookmarks, documents, and other sources
to see if they are safe.

The AVG interface is comprehensive but filled with large icons that don’t do much except indicate status. It would be nice if users could right-click the icons to enable and disable protection, configure the suite, and perform other tasks. Instead, you’ll find configuration options buried in various menus.

Minor annoyances aside, AVG 8.0 did a good job of getting us up and running quickly, and intrusions are minimal and well-managed. AVG 8.0 alerts you when potentially risky programs access the Internet, you choose between unrestricted or safe site and one-time or permanent access. The antispam filter comes with several configuration features yet did a decent job without any changes.

System requirements (1.2GHz processor, 256MB memory) are reasonable. Tested AVG on several systems, including one that didn’t quite meet system requirements, and it ran on them all. However, the resource drain during some operations is noticeable unless you more than meet requirements. One other minor quibble is that there is no easy way to temporarily disable protection. You must go in and disable components individually.

Several virus labs give AVG 8.0 high marks, and we found its online protection generally to be on target. Overall, this program is a well-rounded, hassle-free choice for novice or busy users with reasonably fast computers. Intermediate users who occasionally want to fly without a net will likely be frustrated. Tech support is minimal with online FAQ and email only.

Click more for details:AVG Internet Security 8.0

This is a true all-in-one security suite, which is both good and bad.

The good part is that it comes with nearly everything you need to fend off threats, including antivirus, antispyware, antirootkit, and antiphishing tools; a firewall; and even a backup utility. The antivirus protection is excellent, and the suite also comes with a hard drive cleanup tool.

The bad part is that enabling all those features results in a noticeable performance hit in terms of boot times and overall system speed. This is still one of the better suites for total protection, but experts may want to opt for Symantec’s standalone antivirus app and assemble the rest of their protection programs separately.

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As the name suggests, this suite focuses on privacy instead of threat management, and it is loaded with features. You can create as many virtual drives as you wish, then lock them down with real-time, 256-bit AES encryption. Another tool puts all of your email contacts, calendar data, and other information on the secure drive. You can configure any of these secure drives to open as soon as Windows boots, provided that you supply the proper passphrase, making them easy to work with throughout the day. The utility then resecures your files when the computer shuts down. A File Manager utility also lets you encrypt individual files or entire folders and can even hide them.

The included shredder is terrific, offering manual or scheduled secure deletion of both free space and any files or folders you choose. It can use a variety of algorithms, including Gutmann. A password manager makes it easy to use secure multiple passwords without worrying about forgetting them. Overall, this collection makes an excellent companion for your anti-spyware and antivirus tools.

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Firewalls can be hard to uninstall. Spyware, adware, and hack attacks can try to alter or remove your firewall from your system, so firewall vendors make the programs stick to it.

The best way to remove a firewall is to use the Add Or Remove Programs feature in the Windows Control Panel because it triggers the firewall’s built-in removal process. If the Add Or Remove Programs feature doesn’t work, consult your users guide or vendor’s Web site to see if there are different ways to remove the software. For instance, you can remove certain McAfee programs, including the McAfee Personal Firewall Plus, with a program called the McAfee Removal Tool that you can download from www.mcafee.com.

Internet Connection Sharing is a Microsoft program that lets you share one Internet connection among many computers. Some firewalls turn it off when they install, along with connection sharing programs from any vendor.

One solution is to repeat the ICS setup. But first check with your firewall vendor; some make tools you can download to reestablish your ICS connection quickly. You can download the tools from the vendors’ Web sites.

Also be careful about the effects ICS can have on your firewall. Some vendors note that you can install their firewall on the ICS gateway and guard all computers that share its connection from malicious inbound traffic. But if you want to guard against outbound traffic, you’ll have to install the firewall on every ICS computer you want to protect.