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Archive for the 'Security' Category


Sunbelt Personal Firewall Review

Sunbelt Software has recently renamed their Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall to be Sunbelt Personal Firewall. It’s their personal computer firewall software package. SPF is available in full-function mode (paid license) and in a reduced-function free (licensed free for personal non-commercial use) versions. Actually, it is the same program — after the full-function 30-day trial, [...]

ActiveX or No ActiveX

I received a question from a subscriber who asked:
A number of times I have seen you refer disparagingly of “Active-x controls”.
I have seen downloads that require Active X to run properly. I have read the definition of the program, but, I guess I am just dense. What is this thing, and why do you consider [...]

Fighting Against Spyware & Malware

Spyware is software that enables a third-party to track where you go on the Internet. Usually this does not involves specific tracking cookies and companies that specialize in tracking your visits to advertiser sites.
Although this capability has given cookies a bad name, cookies are not inherently evil. They are used for many good purposes such [...]

Problems with Pre-loaded Software

We’re all used to our computer manufacturers preloading Windows, Windows Media Player, AOL and a couple other dial-up services, anti-virus trials, Microsoft Office trials and a bunch of other stuff.
I usually delete the junk quickly. Whether it’s a trial version of an antivirus I don’t want or a trial of Microsoft office, I want the [...]

When I delete an email, it’s gone — right?

There is a little trick to the way POP3 email programs like Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora and Thunderbird store the email messages you receive. A “deleted message” is not really deleted! Did you know that?
Outlook and Outlook Express store all the emails in one huge file, even if you have your emails split between [...]