avast

Smartphone Antivirus Protection: Choosing Best Software for You

This is a guest post by Alexis Bonari. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Experts have been deliberating over the conundrum of when mobile antivirus software will become necessary, but with the recent Trojan attack on Android-based devices, it looks like the future has arrived. An unknown malicious website has been prompting users to install a “media player application” on their phones. And while the app is no bigger than 13 KB, giving even savvy users the illusion of simplicity and innocence, the Trojan is hidden inside. Once installed, SMS messages, which can cost several dollars, are consistently sent from the devices without their users’ knowledge. Fortunately, the issue seems to be contained in Russia, but it’s obvious that the opportunity for other malware apps has increased. The following are some of the most popular examples of mobile antivirus software designed to protect your phone and put your mind at ease.

avast! PDA Edition
Although it was initially designed for use with PDAs, this antivirus software also works for Windows CE Smartphones. Because of its small size and memory requirements, a typical scan of your phone would only take a few seconds, so it’s practical to run these scans frequently. Report files can be created and viewed, which show a detailed description of the scanning process and anything that may have been found. Updates can be downloaded and installed using the software’s special updater designed to work with pocket devices. Subscriptions can be bought in one, two, or three-year increments and the number of licenses can also be changed to reflect the number of devices to be protected. A 60-day free trial of the software can be found here.

Avira AntiVir Mobile
This software has automatic updates via LAN or other Internet connections, but optimally updates via PC. Its clear menu navigation enables users to easily understand scan results and enjoy simple usability, and an automatic or interactive procedure is run whenever a virus is found. Infected files can be deleted, and the software includes support for the Windows Mobile 6.5 interface. A 30-day test key is available here and can be used to experience the software on a trial basis.

Norton Smartphone Security
The Norton software comes in two versions, supporting both Symbian and Windows Mobile users. It enables users to protect their privacy by preventing the theft of personal information, eliminating text and multimedia spam, and keeping cybercriminals and mobile threats away from your Smartphone. It checks phones with weekly updates and claims that it won’t slow down web activity or affect Smartphone performance. Free trials for both Symbian and Windows Mobile users can be found here.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She often can be found blogging about general education issues as well as information on college scholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Tips to Optimize your Computer

optimize-ur-system
These tips may seem to be silly to many geeks, but most of the geeks also neglect these small things and frustrate later, due to degraded performance of their computer.

All these tips are applicable for the computers with 1GB or less RAM and running with single processors.

But it may help computers with any configurations over time, when there is lot of things loaded in your hard disk and RAM.

1. Don’t install unnecessary driver software….this will increase the boot time.
Ex:- Installing printer drive software, when there is no printer with you.

2. Do not keep more things on your desktop.

3. Remove unwanted software from loading as soon as your computer is started.
For windows users, goto Run -> type “msconfig“-> goto Startup tab -> there properly read the Command lists and uncheck the unnecessary applications running.

4. Select the best and install only required software.

Ex:- Do not use 15 to 20 music player software. Just use 2 or 3 good featured software.

5. Use good anti-virus, which does not slow down your PC speed. We highly recommend using Avast, its free non-commercial Home us and costs some money for commercial use.

6. Do not install the software that comes in internet as a popup. These software will usually slowdown your PC and its effect can’t be removed unless formatting your PC, if its a malware or spyware. As we can never guess exactly, what that software has done to your PC.

7. Do not leave your pen drive, card reader etc in the PC after you have finished using it.

Do not leave any CD or DVD in the drive after the use.

8. If you have put any animated background image to your desktop background, then remove it first. This will be loaded into the memory and will surly contribute for performance degrading of your system.

9. If you are a programmer, don’t forget to close the editors like C/C++, JCreator etc editors before using some other applications. This will slowdown the PC and in some cases, the system any hang.

10. Restart and shutdown your computers at least once in a day. This tip might be surprising for some of you. But remember, many geeks use the option called Hibernate instead of shutdown, so that, they can resume their work from the point where they had left.

This is a great feature, but restarting or shutting down the PC at least once in a day may help in maintaining the health of your Personal Computers.

These are some of the 10 simple tips for optimizing your computers.

But this is not the end. Now I would like to leave it to you. Please share your knowledge in the comment section and let all of us know your tip for optimizing Personal computers. And the list will grow as and when we get some interesting tip by anyone of you.

We recommend avast! anti-virus

We have been using avast! in our home computer from 2 years and its a tension free computing now, as our computer has never been infected by any virus, spyware or malware from 2 years.

Before installing avast, I use to format my Computer almost 3 to 5 times in 6 months, due to some external attacks. But after installing avast, I have not at all thought about formatting my PC. Its a kind of – “Simply install and forget”.

The impressive avast-krabice-home48 part is, avast Home edition is free to use for non-commercial, home purpose.

And avast! is offered in over 30 language versions, and you need to select the language you require before you download.

You can register avast! online, and you will get a unique, free registration key and it will only work for your computer. So, your registration key would be of no use for some one else.

After you use the FREE version of avast! for one year, all the updates will get expired and you must again register for new registration key online and you will start getting updates again till 1 year. Like this, you need to register every year.

And note that, you just have to install it, get the registration code and leave it, the updates are totally automatic(internet connection required! ).

The free version supports:-

Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows Me
Windows NT 4 (No Server)
Windows 2000 (No Server)
Windows XP (No Server)
Windows Vista

It is sad to see only the Windows OS support here.

avast-shield I have used many anti-virus programs available in the internet, and had one or the other problems…like the increase in loading time, popups, update notification etc. And the software did not work to the mark.

And in my journey of trying anti-virus programs, I got avast! , used it for almost more than 2 years now, and I am a satisfied user. And I will surly buy the paid version of avast! in the future, for commercial use.

Now I am using avast in my home computer(used for entertainment, surfing and for testing some software etc — Totally non-commercial). And on my laptop(which is used for blogging), vista firewall does all the job.

So, if you are looking for a FREE version anti-virus, with professional performance and simple to use interface, then avast! could be for you. And remember, use it on non-commercial,home computers only.

Free antivirus – avast! Home Edition features

Anti-spyware built-in	Web Shield
Anti-rootkit built-in	Automatic updates
Strong self-protection	Virus Chest
Antivirus kernel	System integration
Simple User Interface	Integrated Virus Cleaner
Resident protection	Support for 64-bit Windows
P2P and IM Shields	Internationalization
Network Shield

Tried and Trusted With over 50 million users of avast!, you can rest assured that you are using one of the most tried and trusted products in Windows security.

If you want more security, more protection and still more features, for your office or for any commercial purpose, then there is paid avast! version for it. And it would be smart to investment on buying avast! products.

Which anti-virus do you use to protect your computer ? And what do your feel about its performance, please share with us, in the comment section.