Understanding PC: Will Increasing PC Speed By Increasing FileSystem Cache Pay Off?

I recently helped a friend clear up his PC problem when he reported lags and glitchy performance with his Windows XP. A brief questioning of the situation revealed that he had done a filesystem cache tweak which leads to his PC performance degrading.

There is a common belief that by increasing the FileSystem Cache of Windows, users can experience a boost in PC performance, since Windows will tend to use the maximum available RAM to power applications, resulting in more responsive scenarios. In fact, I am going to show you how to do it here:

1. Click Start, type in “cmd” and you will see the command prompt icon.
2. Right Click the cmd icon and choose “Run as Administrator“
3. Now in the command prompt windows type in the following command.

fsutil behavior set memoryusage 2

4. Now restart windows 7.

If you want to review your actions, using the following query in cmd will show you the value.

fsutil behavior query memoryusage

There are many websites that claim that any users can perform this command to increase PC performance. Do not believe this, for some of them did not properly explain the logic behind FileSystem Cache or conduct a benchmarking...which is misleading, i must say. If unsuspecting users do this on a PC without the proper requirements, it will not have any effects and if worse, will result in an even worse performance than before!

By nature, increasing FileSystem Cache size means that your PC will attempt to maximize RAM usage, usually with a benchmark for example, it will prevent RAM usage from falling below single digit level and make applications run at the maximum possible performance. Your PC can also handle more concurrent operations, since the page pool limits are being raised. This tweak is popular with servers, since they are the ones that have to handle multiple file operations.

With the logic above in mind, we can conclude that:

1. Increasing FileSystem Cache size is best performed on a PC with large amount of RAM onboard, with a mimimum of 2GB on Windows XP & Windows 7 and an additional 0.5 GB on Windows Vista. Most importantly, a majority of these RAM must be free from application use, otherwise applying the tweak will result in negative effect.

2. The success of FileSystem Cache tweak is heavily influenced by memory amount, therefore 64-bit OS can take advantage of this tweak rather than 32-bit OS. The reason is that the maximum RAM that can be used by 32-bit OS is 3.5 GB, while 64-bit OS can use 4GB-8GB and beyond.

3. Since this tweak is originally for servers that operates at something like 8GB & beyond, i highly doubt that a normal PC system below 8GB RAM could actually see a difference by applying the tweak.


I know i will need someone's in-depth research and benchmark to support my conclusions, so i dig around and found this excellent analysis by Eric aka TweakHound.

In his research, you will notice that the conclusions i've made regarding the FileSystem Cache tweaks are proven. With benchmarking, research & consultation from expert, Eric concluded at the end of the test, that on normal PC, the tweak is USELESS.

My final advice to majority of users out there is, don't waste your time applying this tweak. As I stated before, this tweak works best with 64-bit OS that runs on high amounts of RAM and also the hardware befitting those of server computers, but trust me, even if your computer fit these requirements, the performance improvement is not enough to produce a positive impact.

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New AV Comparatives Results Out: My Take On The Antivirus Vendors

I am still busy with academic stuffs when i thought i should de-stress myself with a blog post. AV Comparatives has just released their Retrospective/Proactive Test for May 2010 and i thought I would share it around. 

The test result gave me a surprise: Of all the antivirus vendors, Trustport Antivirus 2010 is actually the overall winner, dethroning the usual past winners Avira & G DATA from the top spot. Panda Antivirus did well too (Panda Cloud Antivirus also uses the same engine, albeit in the cloud), but unfortunately it has too much false positive. Bitdefender & the other antivirus using the Bitdefender engine ( G DATA, F-Secure) also did well, too; previously the Bitdefender engine failed to impress on AV Comparatives.


Amongst the freeware, Microsoft Security Essential did the best, with Avira a close second. However, the real disappointment lays with Avast! v5; I thought that Avast! is a pretty solid freeware antivirus but this time, even the weaker AVG outperforms it in proactive detection.


All in all, this result has its own weakness and is thus, suitable only for general reference as to how an antivirus may perform in real-life. For example, i was let down by AV Comparatives' decision to use NOD32 Antivirus v4 when the 4.2 version has already been long released. If you read through the report, you will also realized that some of the antivirus (example, F-Secure) are not tested with its maximum detection potential, meaning to say that their final result are not as accurate as it might be. AV Comparatives' tests are also not as large-scale as the VB100 tests as you can see, some similarly popular antivirus vendors are not even been tested (like Sunbelt Vipre, Rising Antivirus, Agnitum Outpost & Sophos).
 
If you are interested in comparing the current proactive test results with past tests, you can visit AV Comparatives' test reports archive. 

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A Review of TheWorld Browser v3.1

TechGeek is as kind as to send me a link to TheWorld browser, a relatively unknown browser if compared to the other leading browsers like IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari. I heard of this browser before, but never did really test it, nor did I realize that it has released their latest 3rd version to public (the previous version I know is v2). So here am I, writing a review on it.

Is it another Internet Explorer?



The simple answer is no.

There are detailed narration of TheWorld Browser on their official website so I’m not going to list down everything here, but do take some of these important notes about TheWorld Browser v3. It is essentially a browser utilizing the same browsing engine as Internet Explorer, which we called it Trident. In contrast with IE however, it is designed to be lightweight, full-featured and highly customizable with add-ons and plugins. So in other words, it may use the same web rendering engine and some popular features, but you can expect it to be BETTER than IE.

How is its features compared to IE, then?

Installation is fast and simple. When the browser is launched, it brings us to the homepage. Although the GUI layout does not have frames, it is simple and easily navigational and the color is pleasing to the eye. I immediately notice some interesting difference. Firstly the browser’s toolbar is located on the right side of the minimize/maximize button, with an additional button where users can retract the toolbar menu. Pretty cool, actually.

Another extra feature TheWorld Browser had on the table is a tiny yet useful scrolling tool, located just at the right of the tab area. For people who open multiple tabbed windows for browsing, this can come in handy.

Unlike IE, TheWorld Browser can be customized much easier. Like Firefox and most recently Chrome, the browser has its own dedicated plugin and addon website where users can easily browse and install the plugins they want. Its library is much lesser than those of Firefox but still, it’s pretty impressive considering that IE didn’t even have such a library.

TheWorld Browser also has its own download manager, which is also configurable.  In fact, I can see that some of the options are not available on other browsers, which makes it really unique.

If the above features are what TheWorld Browser has and IE doesn’t have, then take a look at some of the features that TheWorld browser already shared with IE. Both have InPrivate browsing (heck, even the name’s the same!), both has jumplist for Windows Superbar and both share the same Internet Settings Options. Whatever IE’s got, TheWorld browser got too!

I wonder if anyone would immediately dump IE after this feature review…

Is it fast and performs well?

To judge its overall experience together with resources usage, I pulled out the old faithful: Windows Task Manager and do a little homework. Here’s TheWorld Browser’s performance in idle mode (when browser is minimized/in the background):

It runs in two separate processes, just as what you would’ve expect IE to, but in comparison to IE, its resources usage during idle is more lighter.

How about when it is active and running in foreground? Here’s its resources usage when I started browsing:

Still a pretty normal performance. There’s almost no impact at all.

Then how about when it is loading pages? Here’s its resources usage when I started loading a page: 

It is pretty harsh on CPU; CPU usage spiked up to 50 cycles which turns me off slightly; memory also spiked up to 40000K on one of the processes, which I believe is GUI or network-related process.

Although TheWorld browser can be quite CPU-hungry, I still think this performance is worthy of praise; well, I’m a Firefox fan and I’ve seen Firefox performing a lot worse than that, particularly the memory leak issue. IE performed even worse than that! I would say TheWorld browser is still slightly slower than Firefox in terms of browsing speed, but it is a way ahead of IE (even with the same rendering engine). 

Is it stable?

I did not encounter any unusual issue when using TheWorld, but it doesn’t mean that it is hang-proof. I spammed the toolbar-minimizer button while a page was loading and guess what, it actually hangs on me!

Although it recovered to normal after waiting a while, I would say TheWord browser may still need to get some bugs and performance issue sorted out…

Conclusion:

There are many alternative, less-popular browsers I would recommend to people, notably the latest Maxthon v3 Beta and Flock, but TheWorld browser is yet another good alternative I would suggest, especially those wanting to replace IE in particular. TheWorld browser runs on Windows 2000 onwards, making it a pretty compatible browser. If there is a five-star rating on this browser, I’d probably give it a four.

Visit TheWorld Browser v3 Official Site. 

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In The News: Apple iPad Captured .04% of Browser Market Share

Even before its launch in the US, the latest offering from Apple Inc. has already hit the headlines; people are talking about its beauty, its Wi-Fi and 3GS capability, its sleek and modern design and its feature lineup which surpasses the Apple iPhone. So successful was this new baby, that Apple was forced to delay worldwide launch of iPad by a month due to strong U.S demand and limited iPad supply. This caused annoyance among worldwide fans but hey, it wouldn't matter much, just as how Israel banned Apple iPad to protect its wireless network does not affect anything; Apple had already sold massive amount of units in the U.S alone and the iPad hype just continued...


iPad even made headlines most recently with its browser market share. Just a mere 10 days off from its launch in the U.S, NetApplications' data is already reporting that iPad captured some 0.04% of browser market share; the numbers even rivaled those of Windows Mobile, Android and Blackberry.

  
Apple's mobile products literally still dominate the mobile browsing scene, even if iPad isn't in there to mix things up. iPhone recorded a 0.51% market share, while iPod touch comes in at 0.11%.  However, with iPad going so strong barely a few days into its launch, i guess we can expect a massive shake in the browser market share pretty soon...shall i guess, three months? Some people may suggest that iPad had been successful thus far due to initial launch hype, but remember, that amount was in the U.S alone, with full-featured iPad yet to come and another worldwide launch yet to happen.


All i can say for now is: iPad, you really got the right stuffs in you!

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Delete Hidden GIMP Thumbnails Easily Using A Custom Windows Batch File

 For GIMP users on Windows only:

Some users of GIMP might not realize this, but GIMP stored a history of the different images opened and edited by it in the form of thumbnails in one of its hidden folders. As mentioned, since it is a hidden folder, users will not be able to see and browse through it without toggling on the 'Show Hidden Files and Folders' in the Folder Options menu.

After you toggle the 'Show Hidden Files and Folders' option on, you will be able to locate GIMP's thumbnail folder at your Personal Folder area (where by default held other folders such as My Document, My Pictures, My Music etc).

Here's the full path of the folder where the thumbnails are located:

C:\Users\(Your Personal Folder's Name)\.thumbnails\normal

In my opinion, those thumbnails do me little good:

1) When accumulated in large numbers, they only suck up precious disk space. 

2) The incredibly small image size of the thumbnails means that it is obsolete, not even worthy of being backups in case users want to recover the image they've edited. 

3) I consider the thumbnails as a breach of privacy to a certain degree. Heck, why should anyone know what images had we been editing with GIMP?

Due to these three issues, i strongly suggest users of GIMP delete their GIMP thumbnail folder's contents. Manually deleting the contents will do, but here's an easier way to delete the contents without  turning on the 'Show Hidden Files and Folders': using a Windows Batch File!

Here's how to create a Windows Batch File that delete GIMP's thumbnail folder's contents:

1. On your desktop, right-click and create a new Text Document.

2. Notepad will launch. Now insert the following line into notepad:

     del C:\Users\Owner\.thumbnails\normal\*.* /Q

3. Go to 'Save As' and rename the text file to something like 'Delete GIMP Thumbnails' (without quotes). Immediately after the last word of your filename, type '.bat' as extension. The extension will convert the text file into a batch file. Click 'Save' to save the batch file. Place the batch file at any location you like.

 4. You have just created a Batch File that will delete all contents in the GIMP thumbnail folders' contents at a simple double-click!

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Chrome v4 vs Opera v10.50: Both Very Fast, But Who's Really Better?

Released a couple of weeks ago for Windows and Mac users, the Opera 10.50 web browser seeks to regain the undisputed title of “Speedking” when it comes to web browsing pleasure. With a host of innovative functions introduced to keep the most inquisitive web geek fascinated, Opera hopes to increase their market share of users. We matched it up in a series of tests against Chrome 4.0.249.89 (stable release) which we considered to be the best yardstick for speed, and this is what we found. 
 
Using V8 Benchmark Suite (admittedly a Google program), Chrome fared better overall (see image) but there were certain areas where Opera 10.50 was outstanding. The DOM selection speed test went to Opera as did the page load speed using the Opera Turbo function (although the picture quality is initially poor). Chrome was a bit heavier on RAM usage, but Opera was extremely reluctant to release it when we asked it to close.
 

Chrome looks good, acts smoothly and has speeded up its automatic translation bar. It has caught up with Opera when it comes to internet privacy (look for the little detective icon) and the new tab features are incredibly user friendly.

The Carakan Javascript engine and the speed dial thumbnails on the Opera browser are slick additions to an already powerful browser, but the biggest “eyebrow raiser” is the file sharing facility offered by Opera Unite. In these days of cloud technology this feature is against the run of the mill. Some individual users will find it a huge advantage whereas others will find it an encumbrance. 

In conclusion – Chrome wins narrowly in our opinion. Each user will have their own likes and dislikes of the respective browsers, but we cannot see an end to the growth in market share which Chrome is currently enjoying.



This article is contributed by Melissa Tamura and review, edited and published by James. Melissa Tamura blogs about topics such as this example for the Zen College Life Blog. She would like to hear from you @ melissatamura@gmail.com

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Tizer Rootkit Razor, Another Great Antirootkit Free For Personal Use

I've come across few independant antirootkits in the market nowadays; most antirootkit module are incorporated into so-called internet security. For example, the antirootkit module of famous antirootkit GMER, is actually integrated into Avast!. Even though there are some free antirootkit such as Panda Antirootkit, Sophos Antirootkit and Blacklight from F-Secure, few of them are full-featured and compatible with all versions of Windows.  The only antirootkit that works substantially is UnHackMe, also a freeware (with paid upgrades available) despite it slowing the boot process significantly.

Tizer Rootkit Razor is not necessarily a new kid on the block, but since the company is quite low-profile, very few users really do know this antirootkit. Nevertheless, the company has one of the more impressive independent antirootkit i ever came across. Here are some of the goods about this antirootkit:

1. Rootkit Razor's GUI is dead simple

The antirootkit's layouts are simple to navigate and are all functional; People who asks for simplicity and nothing too fanciful about GUI design will be attracted to this program; Well, it's supposed to be designed to do what it does anyway: find and terminate rootkits!

2. Rootkit Razor is feature-packed

Most antirootkit only revolves around the basics: processes, registry and services. Not for Rootkit Razor, though. This little baby has all sorts of scanning features: processes, registry, kernel modules, services, files and folders, network ports...pretty complete set that i've seen. Even though the website doesn't state this benefit, Rootkit Razor actually does not require a services process to run, and therefore, can be executed in Windows Safe Mode, where services process are usually prevented from running.

3. Rootkit Razor is highly compatible with modern OS

The previous chart image should explain everything: Rootkit Razor integrates seamlessly with contemporary versions of Windows spanning from XP to 7: and it really does; i've installed Rootkit Razor on all versions of OS; none of them had any installation errors or running errors. Uninstallation of Rootkit Razor also works fine, though there are some registry leftovers that will require the aid of registry tools to clean it up.

4. Rootkit Razor is moderately lightweight

Okay, so antirootkits are supposed to be easy on PC resources, since they are just simpler programs designed to do specific tasks (eliminating rootkits). Rootkit Razor are not exactly light on resources when active, but when idle, they are pretty easy on resources. Maximum CPU cycles used on smart scan hits 45 out of 100 and memory of up to 5000K is utilized. On idle, CPU drops down to 0 CPU cycles, though the memory sometimes stays at 5000K or even higher or lower after a scan.

There are also some bads as well:

1. No Real Time Protection or Boot-time Scan?

Perhaps i've been biased, but after using UnHackMe Antirootkit, it has become a must of mine that good antirootkits are supposed to have real-time bootwatch modules, or at least a scheduled boot-time scan. Rootkit Razor can only be functional when Windows is fully logon into desktop mode.

2. No User Interface for Novices?

Not all PC users are computer-savvy, so why no summarized interface, like what F-Secure did with Blacklight (the one-click module)? I love how Rootkit Razor presents all its features which suits an advanced PC user like me, but i'll bet that begginers will be turned off by the advanced knowledge of PC required to work with Rootkit Razor - if any beginners took interest in this antirootkit in the first place. The image above says it all: manually searching for rootkits in the registry? That's not going to attract much novice...

3. Not supporting x64 bit OS?

I do not have this tool tested on x64 bit OS, but from general feedbacks and comments i could get around the web, Rootkit Razor does NOT support x64 bit operating system. Soon and very soon, 32-bit OS will extinct with the launch of Windows 8 and 64-bit and 128-bit OS will be the mainstream architecture of modern OS. Are the developers aware of this upcoming trend or not? 


Still, Rootkit Razor is a decent antirootkit that you can keep with your 32-bit PC and periodically executes it to scan for rootkits. If you are an advanced user who are IT-knowledgeable and have experience working with the likes of advanced-level antirootkits such as GMER and TrendMicro HijackThis, then Rootkit Razor's the tool for you.

Download Tizer Rootkit Razor here.

Visit Tizer Rootkit Razor's Main Page here.

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Recent Beta Program Updates

I have been busy learning new stuffs in and out during my holidays, so i couldn't fulfill my promise as stated in my announcement area. Nevertheless, i felt it's time i pull myself away from all this learning and started posting something here.



Today i'll not be introducing software or promotions to you, but i'll instead, give you a brief update on some of the interesting beta programs i keep tabs on throughout my holiday periods:

1. Avast! Antivirus v5

This popular antivirus has just came out of beta on the 20th of January. The new v5 has a revamped interface design, more user-centric charts and options plus several new features and scan engine updates. It is incredibly light on PC resources as well. Not bad for a free antivirus, i must say!


2. Trend Titanium

Remember my previous post about Trend Micro Security Beta? Well, this is essentially a renamed version of the previous Trend Micro Security Beta program. Trend Titanium is released as renamed, recolored and optimized feature. Having said that, it still keeps its virtue of operating from the cloud, so it is extremely light on resources. The beta program is still going on at Trend Micro Beta Portal and will proceed all the way into March 2010.

3. Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate (RC)

Firefox is pretty much the trendsetter in terms of add-on features and security standards for browsers, but in v3.6, due to release in the coming weeks, Firefox developers are more focused on performance and speed improvements. Personal testing revealed that v3.6 is indeed, more responsive and produces minimal crashes for a beta program, but then it's speed significantly trails behind those of Google Chromes and the latest Opera v10.5.


4. Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta

Although the current Adobe Flash Player 10 works just fine with no reported vulnerabilities, the fact is that it is still slow...incredibly slow on graphic rendering. Imagine Youtube's hi-def videos going sluggish on your PC, or the Flash games on Facebook maxing out your CPU cycle, making your PC as slow as a snail! The latest beta version of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 bring GPU acceleration technology to your PC, or in other words, Adobe Flash Player now utilizes your PC's graphic cards in order to render high-definition flash videos and games, therefore reduce CPU stress! Bad news is, there are only some processors in the market that supports this new tech...


5. BitComet 2010 Beta

 BitComet's high times are over; people nowadays would rather recommend uTorrent or Vuze to manage downloads, but then to hardcore fans, BitComet serves them just fine. The new BitComet emphasizes on GUI improvements and  bug fixes, plus some minor network tweaks to improve overall experience.

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Top Ten Free Antivirus of 2009

I keep track with developments of antivirus software nearly everyday and have get myself into testing various kinds of antivirus. Same as last year, i decided to summarize my topics on antivirus for the last month of 2009 by re-adjusting my list of top ten FREE antivirus of the year.

1.Microsoft Security Essentials

Who'd thought that Microsoft's home-made security solutions would take the number one spot? Previous versions of Microsoft Live OneCare sucks bad in detection in my opinion, but after revamping and redeveloping the scan engine into what was now know as Security Essentials, the antivirus actually sort of outperforms lots of existing antivirus in terms of detection rate, speed and usability (why, it caught some malwares on which Avast! and Kaspersky missed in my independent testing!). The only nuisance about Microsoft Security Essentials is that it can be very harsh on the CPU, especially during computer bootup.

2. Avira Personal

Last year's number one antivirus, Avira, has been taken off the top of my list, but that doesn't mean it is bad. Avira still has one of the best detection rates out there for a free antivirus and is actually easy to use and pretty stable and consistent with its detection rate and performance. However, malware database update for Avira can be a painstaking process (this is due to server overload on which Avira has yet to find a solution). Also, Avira sometimes throw up lots of false positives, especially if users set the heuristic level too high.

3. Avast! 

Avast! is one of my favorite antivirus (no bias intended) because it is interactive, simple to use, and quite light on resources. In fact, Avast! outperforms both Avira and Security Essentials in terms of performance, consuming less RAM and CPU power on idle. Detection rate is reliable and consistent too. The bad thing though, is its ridiculous, media player-like user interface which looks as though it is lacking professionalism. Besides, Avast has been sticking to the v4 label for more than three or four years already, without any significant upgrades or optimization in its features. Let's just hope that the significantly improved Avast! v5 Beta can come out of beta as soon as possible.

4. Panda Cloud Antivirus

Panda is the first company to popularize cloud-based protection and actually was successful at it. It requires users to sign up for a Panda Cloud account in order to use its protection features but then it's pretty much worth it; Panda Cloud Antivirus utilize cloud-based scanning which means that user's PC does not slow down to a crawl during scanning and detection rates are greatly improved. The only problem is Panda does not seem to offer lots of side features apart from scanning and reports, which might not be attractive to advanced users.

5. Qizhi 360 Security (known as Qihoo 360 Security in some media)

This might sound unfamiliar to most but then it is a very popular free antivirus in China, barely a few months old into its official launch. Qizhi 360 Security is a Chinese antivirus which utilizes a modified BitDefender scanning engine with additional enhancement from Kaspersky malware database, making it a very powerful antivirus free for use (In fact, it totally outperformed local Chinese antivirus such as Rising and Kingsoft till a state that those companies started complaining Qizhi 360 Security...). It is easy to use, consumes extremely little resources and also offers gaming mode, a function not available in most free antivirus software. Despite this, Qizhi 360 Security's installer is extremely hard to download, thanks in no small part to the extremely poor download server used by Qizhi. Also, the antivirus is available in Chinese language only, which is rather disappointing for non-Chinese affiliated users.

6. AVG Free

Despite claims that it is the most widely used free antivirus in the market, AVG's performance says otherwise: The antivirus is getting more and more bloated and resources hungry with every release, has a so-and-so detection rate and often conflict with lots of software, which has never happened before in previous releases. Regardless, it is still considered quite easy to install and use and actually is quite easy to configure, second only to Security Essentials and Panda Cloud Antivirus.

7. PC Tools Antivirus Starter Edition

Not much change has occured with the PC Tools Antivirus; in fact, i have a weird suspicion that the 2010 version is essentially a rebranded version of the 2009 version...with no major upgrades or feature tweaks. Nevertheless, PC Tools serve well for those who ask for simple protection and nice user interface. Only problem is, unlike the top 5 antivirus mentioned above, PC Tools is significantly heavier on PC resources, which does not make it an attractive antivirus to use on a low-end PC.

8. SecureIT 2009

Another lesser known antivirus - SecureIT 2009 is essentially an Internet Security packed with firewall, online protection, popup blocker and integrated antivirus and antispyware module powered by ClamAV. It does not have a glossy user interface, but it does offer all-round protection with moderate PC resources. Only problem with SecureIT 2009 is the scanning engine itself: since when did ClamAV ever made an impact on the antivirus industry? Nevertheless, SecureIT 2009 can be considered the best antivirus around that uses the ClamAV antivirus engines, and i appreciate that.

9. Immunet Protect

Another cloud-based antivirus. Like Panda Cloud AV, it requires users to sign up in order to enjoy its features, but then there are lots of issues to iron out. From that bulky-designed interface to the lack of features, Immunet Protect does not strike me as a better Cloud antivirus than Panda Cloud Antivirus. It is still currently in beta stage, but then i guess we can give credit to Immunet Protect, since it does work as advertised and most importantly: it is light on resources and actually scans at super-fast speed in comparison with Panda Cloud Antivirus, which is significantly slower.

10. DriveSentry

The only antivirus on the list that utilizes whitelisting and HIPS technology extensively. DriveSentry is in my opinion, a decent antivirus for advanced users. Like Norton, DriveSentry is another antivirus company that emphasize innovative technology development in more efficient detection but then with a massive installer size (more than 90MB excluding its database), slightly confusing interface and fewer database update than conventional antivirus, it is not the best antivirus for novice users. It does have an impressive interface and scanning speed though, and is thus, still a good addition to users' existing antivirus protection (being one of the few antivirus to be able to run side by side with other antivirus).

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Internet Explorer 9 Revealed (Still In Development Phase, Though!)

 Internet Explorer 9 has officially been unveiled today at the annually-held Professional Developers Conference (PDC). In fact, as this article is being published here, attendants and speakers on the PDC conference are still talking about IE9 and other tech advances. You can check out the discussions yourself at the Microsoft's PDC2009 website.

We all know what Microsoft should do with IE9, and apparently their goals with IE9 is pretty much the same as we are since they are pretty obviously heading into the right direction. From the graphs shown in their presentation during the PDC, IE9 is depicted as faster, with more standards-compliant website rendering. The test is based on Webkit.org's SunSpider test, a browser testing site very commonly used for benchmarking browser performance. For a browser which is barely three weeks into development, that is really some achievement. 

According to them, they're also including 'hardware accelerated' rendering using Direct Write and Direct 2D, along with users' graphics card with the aid of DirectX D2D technology. This means that whether you're trying to do CSS3, Javascript or DHTML, IE9 should render things much faster. Stephen Sinofsky mentioned that one particularly impressive rendering showed how with the existing browser, Bing Maps could render a map at about 13-14 frames per second;  but using hardware acceleration,  it was running at 60 frames per second. We're talking about a new browser which performance is tripling its predecessors!


In other words, Internet Explorer 9 will be the first-ever browser to utilize both hardware and software to render its performance. So long your PC's graphic cards are high-end, you can literally expect IE9 to fly. Sweet, isn't it (pray that it wouldn't come out as a disappointment, though)?




As mentioned that IE9 is only three weeks old, we shouldn't be expecting its launch in the near future but then as Sinofsky mentioned, there's still lots of works to do. I think most of us would pretty much be willing to wait for Sinofsky's team to fully develop the new browser, wouldn't we?

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A Personal Review of Avast! v5 Beta II (A Must-Read for Avast! Fan)

I am so busy with life recently that I could not spend much time writing articles, even when I had lots to write about. I still play around with software, though. Recently I downloaded and installed the second test version of Avast! V5 on a virtual machine with Windows XP SP2 installed. I read about feedbacks on the first test version which is quite ok, except that the virus database is not complete.  So when the second release go all-out, I decided to try it myself.

It was a pretty experience. Avast! has not release anything new  for some years but it’s worth the wait, because Avast! v5 is way better than the current 4.8 version on market. Overall, Avast! v5 had improved in these areas:

1.    User Interface (Appearance)

Avast! v5's main page GUI. Second beta's GUI is updated to work smoothly even under high resource usage.

Users who used Avast! before know that Avast! has a pretty ridiculous interface. It feels as though you’re using a media player rather than an antivirus but then it’s official: Avast! ditched the old interface in favour of a more professional one. Even if it’s professional looking now, it doesn’t sacrifice usability. It doesn’t take long for me to learn how to configure the antivirus at all...shall I say, perhaps just 3 to 5 minutes, seriously!
Avast! had also redesigned its logos and icons for v5. Although it feels a bit strange to have that usual blue tray icon gone, the new, orange-crimson one still looks pretty nice (it still spins like the old version!).

The new settings option panel, very unique in design and oh yeah, the function all works correctly so far.

There you are: the new tray icon of Avast! v5. The virus shield outbreak tray icon available in Avast! v4 has been taken out to reduce tray clutter.

2.    Resources Usage

I installed Avast! on a virtual machine. As so, I expect lags and hangs on the virtual machine, as my past experience with antivirus-testing normally end up that way. Surprising though, after installing Avast! v5, it felt as though no antivirus had been installed. I opened task manager to check out its resource usage and I got this incredible result:

Less than 10K of memory used on idle! I allocated 600MB memory for my virtual Windows XP and guess what? There are no lags at all. It’s even better than the current Avast! v4! Norton thought they had hit the performance jackpot with their 2010 version, but apparently Avast! did way better, because Norton 2010 still show signs of lags on the virtual machine while Avast v5 had nearly NONE.

3.    Additional Features (...That Are Working, By The Way!)

Avast! was known for its rather limited security features, since it comes as an all-round security suite even for the free version. But in v5, they added some interesting features which I immediately spotted: customizable right-click context menu scan, screensaver scan, game mode/silent mode, shield traffic graphs and finally, an independent behavioural scanner. Along with the usual shields protection, virus, spyware, heuristic and rootkits scanning, Avast! is now an even more complete security solution.

The many scan options in Avast! v5. Users can now customize their right-click context menu scan option plus the option of letting Avast! scan your PC in screensaver mode.

Avast! v5 gives advanced users the freedom of checking Avast!'s activities with graphed traffics for all shield monitors. Previous versions of Avast!'s shield protection did not have an independent GUI where users can learn how the shields are doing.

I was a bit disappointed to discover that Avast!’s scanning speed was a bit slow (considering that its running on a virtual machine with nothing much to scan), but there’s nothing much to complain when it is still in beta testing stage. Also, i would like a chance to test out the PRO version of Avast! v5, since it comes with an inbuilt firewall and file-virtualization module, which makes things interesting even more.


Those with a passion for beta-testing can definitely try out Avast! v5 beta II.  Download the free version of Avast! v5 beta now by clicking on this link.

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