Avira AntiVir Personal 12.0.0.861

Avira AntiVir Personal - FREE Antivirus is a reliable free antivirus solution, that constantly and rapidly scans your computer for malicious programs such as viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, hoaxes, worms, dialers etc. Monitors every action executed by the user or the operating system and reacts promptly when a malicious program is detected.
Avira AntiVir 12.0 Highlights:

More intuitive User Interfaces – A cleaner, more modern screen design with options organized by function, and a streamlined 2-click install process and automatic resolution of software conflicts during installation. Avira’s software was designed with default configurations to make installation easier, to keep the user safer, and to take the guesswork out of remaining secure. Also, users will discover that many components have been renamed so that every consumer can understand their function without reading the documentation. And best of all, a one-click “Fix Problems” button to solve any issues that might endanger users’ computers.

Smarter Code – Avira software has even further increased detection rates by out-witting malware that hides from ordinary antivirus software. New detection mechanisms find rogue code that hides even deep in the operating system.

Stronger Detection – All components have been fortified in order to better resist malware attacks that target antivirus software specifically. This fortification includes the ability for Avira software to function without many registry keys, better resistance against process termination and component deletion, and many other malware counter-measures.

In addition to a simpler interface, smarter code, and stronger detection, Avira 2012 also focuses on support by adding Live Customer Support for all premium products. If users run into any problems, they can connect directly with a technical support engineer who will fix the problems in real time over the Internet using Avira’s new Team Viewer feature.

Lastly, running two security solutions in parallel can have negative consequences on the stability of the PC and the overall experience with newly installed software. So in order to make the transition to the Avira products version 2012 as easy and painless as possible, automatic detection and removal of potentially incompatible software has been added in all installation programs. No worries, it is possible to select what 3rd party solutions to keep.

• Detects and removes more than 150,000 viruses
• Always among the winners of comparison test featured in computer journals
• The resident Virus Guard serves to monitor file movements automatically, e.g. downloading of data from the internet
• Scanning and repair of macro viruses
• Protection against previously unknown macro viruses
• Protection against trojans, worms, backdoors, jokes and other harmful programs
• AntiVir protection against viruses, worms and Trojans
• AntiDialer protection against expensive dialers
• AntiRootkit protection against hidden rootkits
• AntiPhishing protection against phishing
• AntiSpyware protection against spyware and adware
• NetbookSupport for laptops with low resolution
• QuickRemoval eliminates viruses at the push of a button
• Easy operation
• Internet-Update Wizard for easy updating
• Protection against previously unknown boot record viruses and master boot record viruses

Download: AntiVir Personal 12.0.0.8 | 79.1 MB (Freeware, non commercial use)

View: AntiVir Website for Product Information

AVG Free Edition 2012.0.1834

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is trusted antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows available to download for free. In addition, the new included LinkScanner® Active Surf-Shield checks web pages for threats at the only time that matters - when you're about to click that link.
AVG Anti-Virus Free has these following features:

• Award-winning antivirus and antispyware
• Real-time safe internet surfing and searching
• Quality proven by 80 million of users
• Easy to download, install and use
• Protection against viruses and spyware
• Compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is only available for single computer use for home and non commercial use.
Changelog:
# Fixes & Improvements:
* Update: Fixed issue with update settings conversion while upgrading from previous version.
Download: AVG Free Edition 2012.0.1834 | 154 MB (Freeware)
View: AVG Free Website

Ad-Aware 9.6.0

Ad-Aware gives you comprehensive malware protection. With real-time monitoring, threat alerts, and automatic updates you can rest easy knowing that you are protected.

• Shop, bank, and make travel arrangements online - We keep you safe from password stealers, keyloggers, spyware, trojans, online fraudsters, identity thieves and other potential cyber criminals.
• Control your privacy - Erase tracks left behind while surfing the Web - on browsers such as Internet Explorer, Opera, and Firefox - in one easy click.
• Get Peace of Mind - Know that your personal information is kept safe from dangerous intruders and prying eyes.

Changelog:

• Contains the new Security Toolbar

Download: Ad-Aware 9.6.0 | 11.4 MB (Freeware)
View: Ad-Aware Website

BurnAware 4.1

BurnAware Free is a full-fledged disc burning tool – fast, lightweight, feature-packed and, most importantly, 100% free. The program burns all types of CD, DVD and Blu-Ray discs containing data, digital photos, music and video. With BurnAware Free, you will be able to create bootable or multisession CDs and DVDs, high-quality audio CDs, make and burn disc images, copy and backup discs.

Features

• Burn Data, Bootable and Multisession discs
• Burn Audio, Video and MP3 discs
• Create and burn ISO/CUE/BIN images
• Copy discs to discs or to ISO images
• Erase rewritable discs
• Extract tracks from Audio CDs
• Extract data from unreadable or multisession discs

Supports

• All media types (CD/DVD/Blu-ray Disc) including Double Layer
• All current hardware interfaces (IDE/SCSI/USB/1394/SATA) including AHCI
• UDF/ISO9660/Joliet file systems (any combination)
• On-the-fly writing (no staging to hard drive first)
• Verification of written files
• Multisession DVD-RW/DVD+RW
• Unicode CD-Text (tracks and disc)
• Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 (32 and 64 Bit), .Net framework is NOT required

Download: BurnAware 4.1 | 4.3 MB Freeware
Read: Changelog
View: BurnAware Free Website

Eraser 6.0.9.2343

Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Eraser is currently supported under Windows XP (with Service Pack 3), Windows Server 2003 (with Service Pack 2), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Why Use Eraser?
Most people have some data that they would rather not share with others - passwords, personal information, classified documents from work, financial records, self-written poems, the list continues. Perhaps you have saved some of this information on your computer where it is conveniently at your reach, but when the time comes to remove the data from your hard disk, things get a bit more complicated and maintaining your privacy is not as simple as it may have seemed at first.
Your first thought may be that when you 'delete' the file, the data is gone. Not quite, when you delete a file, the operating system does not really remove the file from the disk; it only removes the reference of the file from the file system table. The file remains on the disk until another file is created over it, and even after that, it might be possible to recover data by studying the magnetic fields on the disk platter surface.

Before the file is overwritten, anyone can easily retrieve it with a disk maintenance or an undelete utility. There are several problems in secure file removal, mostly caused by the use of write cache, construction of the hard disk and the use of data encoding. These problems have been taken into consideration when Eraser was designed, and because of this intuitive design and a simple user interface, you can safely and easily erase private data from your hard drive.
Eraser Features:

• It works with any drive that works with Windows
• Secure drive erasure methods are supported out of the box
• Erases files, folders and their previously deleted counterparts
• Works with an extremely customizable Scheduler

Download: Eraser 6.0.9.2343 | (8.7 MB) Freeware
View: Homepage

 

Microsoft donates $1M to improve teaching in Africa

Say what you will about Microsoft, they’ve always been big on the charity front and today is no different. Microsoft is currently running their “Partners in Learning” conference in Washington, DC to discuss technology in education and as part of the initiative have donated $1,000,000 to help train teachers in Africa.
As reported by TechFlash, Microsoft’s donation will be used to build 80 “digital hubs” in schools across the continent and is expected to “train 20,000 teachers and provide 100,000 learners and communities with digital access.”  These technology centers will be using Microsoft MultiPoint servers that allow multiple students to use the same PC as others, but use their own keyboard/monitor/mouse, similar to a remote desktop connection.
In addition to the large donation, Microsoft also announced that they will be taking control of teach.gov, a resource that is used to attract and retain teachers. The site will be renamed to teach.org and Microsoft will work other companies to improve the offerings in an attempt to help reform teaching in the United States.
Similar to Apple infiltrating schools in the United States in the 80s and 90s, Microsoft will be gaining a foothold in developing countries in Africa. While it remains to be seen what the long term benefits are of this announcement, improving education is very important.


Credit to:Christopher White

Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo announce web ad collaboration

Microsoft normally competes with AOL and Yahoo on a number of ventures, but today the three companies decided to team up in order to provide businesses with a better web advertising experience. The three companies announced today that this new display ad agreement will allow them all "the opportunity to access each other's nonreserved inventory to achieve the benefits of scale and efficiency."
While each of the three companies' web advertising groups (Yahoo! Network Plus, AOL’s Advertising.com and the Microsoft Media Network) will continued to be run independently of each other, this new collaboration will offer advertisers, in the words of Yahoo's vice-president Ross Levinsohn, " ... a more efficient, effective and more effortless way to access true premium inventory and formats."
This agreement is almost certainly a response by Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo to combat the dominance of Google which controls the lion's share of display advertising on the Internet here in the US. If an advertiser sees that a large ad campaign can be stretched out over three advertising companies and web sites networks, they might decide to go with that option than just using Google's solution.
At the moment, this collaboration is only available for advertisers here in the US. Yahoo and AOL have a similar agreement for Canadian businesses but Microsoft has chosen not to participate in that section of the world.

credit to: John Callaham