Registry First Aid 7 - For Free

Hi Friends,

This is 3rd article in the series of four shareware promos article but I am publishing it bit late. Just my mistake. You will have chance to Get Free Registry First Aid 7 which is latest release. Previously, we shared Registry First Aid 6 which is still valid but should you get old one if you can have a new one. So, Get Free Registry First Aid 7.

I am fan of CCleaner which is better than any shareware. But we are sharing Registry First Aid 7 promo because some of you may want to use shareware promo instead of freeware.

Tired of Windows® crashing? Sick of having software lock up on you or taking forever to load? The problem could be all of those incorrect registry entries caused by software installations and un-installations that went awry!
Not all software un-installations do a complete job leaving behind numerous nagging file references in the Windows registry pointing to files that no longer exist. In time, you can end up with hundreds of these files that may slow down your computer and cause software to lock up, requiring a hard reboot of your computer.
Also, if you've moved your programs from one drive to another, you can break the file links that a program needs. Registry First Aid will find these files and folders that you've moved on your hard drive and help you correct the registry entries that point to them.
Registry First Aid scans the Windows registry for orphan file/folder references, finds these files or folders on your drives that may have been moved from their initial locations, and then corrects your registry entries to match the located files or folders. In addition, if your registry has links to files of deleted applications, Registry First Aid will find these invalid entries and remove them from your registry. With Registry First Aid, your Windows registry will be always clean and correct, helping your programs load faster and speeding up your computer.

Get Free:

Open the following web address into your browser and fill the form as guided in the snap and submit it.

http://register.avanquest.com/ABSOFT/produits/Promotion/enregistrement_presse/register_cov_gd.cfm?idcgd=486

Check your e-Mail and find e-Mail from Avanquest with subject "Ihre Registry First Aid Seriennummer: E-Mail-Bestätigung". There you will see a confirmation link, click on it. Follow fllowing snap as guide. 

A new browser window will open where you can see your licnese and same license you will also get into your e-Mail. 

Download Registry First Aid 7 from official site, install it and use the license which you received through previous steps. Enjoy it.

http://download.cnet.com/Registry-First-Aid/3000-2094_4-10061591.html

Read more >>

Nero BurnLite 10 Free

Nero Lts. has release a free Nero BurnLite 10 which is successor of 9. I am not very much impressed. It looks like they just wanna show that they are too generous to offer their product. It felt like written ICE CREAM on a paper.

I have few issues with it. Let me tell you what I feel:

Huge Installation Package: The installation package is 31.2MB huge. Why so big installation package? Is it only to have a pretty interface? My view is the interface  is not pretty or attractive or following any Usability and Accessiblity guidelines.

Forcefully Ask Toolbar Installation: It forcefully installed Ask Toolbar. Even you do not want to install the toolbar but it will be installed. You can uninstall Ask Toolbar later on. But why we are forced to install it. Is Nero going to be bank-crrupt that they need Ask Toolbar Search Click money badly?

Misleading Interface: First when you see interface, you think: O lots of functions. But all these are fake. Eacy and every function, which you will see, will lead you to upgrade. You will get just two functions: Burn Data and Copy Disk. Why the hell we should use Nero BurnLite 10 if many freeware are better than it. For example, CDBurnerXP, the best freeware out there on Internet to replace any shareware. One more shame for a big company.

Faulty Burning Function: I tried to burn 300MB of data at low speed. After burning 70%, it stopped telling me that disk is unaccessable. CDBurnerXP burnt the whole data and there was no error.

Very Limited Functions: As I have already told you that you would get just two functions: Burn Data and Copy Disk.

No Help File Available: I wanted to read help file but there is no help file, which could tell about its functions, installed. There is one Help folder in installation directory but it has no sensible relation with Nero BurnLite 10. A link from software took me to main page but not to any online help file.

Huge Free Space Consumer: It took 69MB on full installation. Considering the functions available, what Nero BurnLite 10 will do with 69MB of diskspace.

Burden On Computer Resources: During burning 300MB of data, my computer was crawling like snail. I was almost unable to open Firefox. It took more than 7 seconds to load Firefox and it opened just in 4 seconds when CDBurnerXP was doing its burning function.

No Disk Image Support: There is no disk image burning support. This means you can not burn any type of disk image not even most famous and standard ISO Disk Image. 

There is a better freeware CDBurnerXP. You can download  Nero BurnLite 10 Free from here:

http://www.nero.com/eng/downloads-nbl-free.php

CDBurnerXP can be downloaded free of cost.

Read more >>

Riding The New Immunet Protect: Is It A Worthy Security Program?

You have probably heard of Immunet for the first time during last year. I last covered that Immunet Protect is a workable and innovative security software that uses cloud community protection, but it is not enough to make a majority of people stick to it, particularly as it has its own buggy problem, limited functionality and questionable effectiveness as all new programs faced.


Immunet recently arrived at its v2 release, where developers gave the security software a major overhaul in every area possible. It is still a freeware, but now there is a Plus version available for those who want Immunet's own in-house traditional antivirus engine. Which is good in a sense that users equipped with the Plus version are protected by Immunet when they are offline. For free users, they will enjoy the cloud community & heuristic-based engine, but no antivirus engine. Immunet is also capable of running alongside any antivirus program even with their own antivirus engine onboard.


I download & tested Immunet Protect to see if it is worth the use. Here are some of the goods about the software:


1. The New GUI Interface

For v2, Immunet uses a more user friendly interface, particularly the main GUI & the '?' description pop-ups. I love Immunet's effort of trying to educate the user on what particular function of the software does, as well as their effort of making navigation easier for users as they add more features to the product. It is also quite attractive in terms of GUI background and color blendings.


2. Enhanced Protection Features for free


The cloud community scanning feature (codename SPERO) is one of Immunet's core features and for v2, they enhanced its functionality. Although users will require to log in (or create an Immunet account if they log in for the first time) to use the feature, the benefits are rewarding. Users can now invite friends to join their cloud network as well as being provided with a visual map as to who is protecting the users through cloud community detection. Community stats are also updated in real-time more frequently than before. 

To compliment SPERO, Immunet formally introduces another scan engine codename ETHOS, a heuristic-based engine. Unlike SPERO, ETHOS runs regardless of whether the user is connected to a network or not. Of course, it works at best with network connection on, but now, users can rest assure that Immunet is protecting them to a certain degree when they are offline.


3. 24/7 Tech Support


Immunet Protect is being given so much tech support attention for a freeware; both free & Pro version users can enjoy full-time support service when they ran into a problem. Although i have no idea whether it works as advertised, it is definitely one good incentive to use the software.


There is also some area about the software that needs improvement:


1. Buggy GUI


Although i praise the beautiful & easy to navigate GUI previously, there's no deny that it is slightly buggy. Running the main GUI will result in a delay and a momentary white patch before the GUI loads completely. Similarly, other sub-GUI also has the same bug.


2. The Adware-like upgrade prompt 

Sometimes, when running the main GUI, you will notice an upgrade prompt popping out from the right side of the GUI. Although i am not objecting Immunet trying to get users to upgrade to the Plus version, i think there should be other better ways to do that; it makes me feel as though i'm using a security software that came bundled with malware or spyware or similar. It is also notoriously difficult to close the prompt, as the close button does not always show on the prompt.


3. Ask.com toolbar is bundled with the installation package

While this is not necessarily a bad thing, the problem comes with the user. Some users will get turn off by the Ask.com toolbar (considered an adware by some) that is installed. While there is an option for users to not install it during setup, how many amateur and novice users will take notice of that? As far as i'm concerned, the ask.com thingy has led to some negative PR on sites like download.com. I also had no idea why would Immunet affiliate themselves with something like that...




Immunet is up on my PC for nearly 4 days already and as far as i know, it is a pretty decent security software, having use minimal PC resources and even beating the likes of Panda Cloud Antivirus in terms of pure startup speed. With further bug fix and improvement, Immunet Protect rocks as a freeware security tool. Despite that, it will take Immunet a long time to build up a densely populated cloud community, which seriously degrades its effectiveness and for this reason, I don't think it is the right moment to recommend it to friends and families yet.


Download Immunet Protect HERE.


Visit the Official Website to learn more.

Read more >>

jv16 PowerTools 2009 v1.9.1.606 (x86-x64)

Do be surprised if I post twice a day. It is because of WeekEnd :-).

Well, Have you ever used jv16 PowerTools? I never used it before but I have heard and read a lot of good comments and reviews on it. I will not use it because I do not need it. I am using CCleaner and very satisfied.

Let's see what they say:

• Automatically clean your Windows registry from obsolete and unneeded data
• Automatically fix many kinds of registry errors, such as broken file references
• Easily uninstall leftover traces of software you have thought you have already uninstalled ages ago
• Detect and remove unneeded history data and MRU (most recently used) lists that can contain sensitive information about you
• Locate and delete unneeded files, including temp files and duplicate files
• And over 27 tools more!

Get Free:

1: Open the following web address into your browser and click on any of two big blue button Zum Download. Follow snap 1.

http://www.chip.de/downloads/Vollversion-jv16-PowerTools-2009_42960945.html

2: You will redirected to a new web-page. Again click as shown in snap 2. (the link will be http://www.chip.de/downloads/c1_downloads_auswahl_42960947.html?t=1274563808&v=3600&s=4d189dc956847ad5b83bb9c7e3eed549)

3: Again you will move forward to another webpage. Here your download should start automatically. If not, click on big blue button Zum Download and your download will start in 5 seconds. (the link might be http://www.chip.de/downloads/c1_downloads_hs_getfile_v1_42960948.html?t=1274564617&v=3600&s=80e90f1131b7b9b6fde6a4f7d5a9a4b2)

4: It is a .zip file named powertolls.zip. Extract its contents and you will see one installer and one license file named license.xbin. Download original installer from http://www.macecraft.com and install jv16 PowerTools 2009.


5: Install it and use the license.xbin to register your copy of jv16 PowerTools 2009 v1.9.1.606. The installer will automatically detect your windows platform.

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WinX DVD to iPad Ripper - Free From May 17,2010 to June 1st, 2010 (Save $29.95)

Personally, I am not a fan of Apple products but there is no doubt that iPad is a hit. They have sold over one million iPads with in limited time. There are may companies who have launched or planning to launch something like iPad but iPad is iPad. I may buy it but not now.

You own iPad or planning to buy it, you must get WinX DVD to iPad Ripper now. The main reason is, at the moment, it is available free of cost and I do not think there should be any hesitation to grab it free.

As I do not own iPad and I do not know any virtual machine based on iPad for Windows system, I could not test it. So, I will copy what they say:

Rip and Convert DVD to iPad

WinX DVD to iPad Ripper is specially designed to rip any DVDs to all iPad video formats, say, iPad MPEG4, iPad H.264 etc. The output video and audio formats are also compatible with iPhone, iPod, Apple TV and iTune video formats.

Edit the Output Video and Image

Users can fully control audio and video parameters to optimize the video with this DVD to iPad ripper. Furthermore, users can also extract music and images from videos to save as MP3 and JPG, BMP respectively.

Batch Conversion with Fast Speed

Users can rip and convert two or more DVDs at the same time. You can enjoy a super fast conversion speed in that it supports multi-core CPU and Hyper Threading technology inside.

Customize File Setting to Facilitate User to Define Converted Videos

Users can name the display name and artist name in the file setting area for output videos before converting DVD to iPad format. It is convenient for users to get the impeccable information of converted videos.

Automatically Connect with Input and Output Devices

Designed with simple interfaces, users can easily operate this DVD to iPad Ripper. This program could automatically detect and connect with input and output devices.

Edit the Output Video

WinX DVD to iPad allows you to optimize the output video by adjusting video frame rate, video resolution, video file size and trimming video segment to get customized videos effect.

You can read more about WinX DVD to iPad Ripper here:

http://winxdvd.com/giveaway/winx-dvd-to-ipad-ripper.htm

I could give a direct download link but it is unethical. Enjoy WinX DVD to iPad Ripper.

The registration license is WINXD2-IPAD-64280-15975

Read more >>

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. 

Read more >>

balesio FILEminimizer Pictures 2.0 - Get Free

Hi Friends,

Many days passed since I am absent from blog. I have already mentioned that I am working on a project. I have to finish that project. Other than twice my personal laptop, installed Windows 7 Pro, crashed and I had to do some efforts to recover valuable data. Luckily, I did not suffer any data lost. BTW, not talking about data but about pictures. Here is an offer for all from CHIP.de that any person, not just Chip magazine readers, can get FILEminimizer Pictures 2.0 free.

You need it when you have to work on large number of pictures e.g. for special occasion or you are professional. Whatever, I never needed it and I do not remember, I have ever used it. They say:

• JPEG file compression by up to 98% - reduce your JPEG files from 5MB to 0.1MB in size
• Compress also PNG, BMP, GIF and TIFF images and pictures
• Keeps the original file format - simply edit, view and change it without the need to unzip
• Batch process: compress whole photo galleries at once
• Choose the most adequate compression level from 4 different options
• Integrated search function finds all optimizable image files on the PC
• "Drag & Drop" files directly into FILEminimizer Pictures to optimize several files at once (batch processing)
• Fully compatible with Windows 7

Get Free:

1: Open the following web address into your browser and fill a short form. Enter your details as:
      1: Name
      2: eMail
      3: Press button

On successful submission of your info, you will be asked to check your eMail.

http://www.balesio.com/campaign/licensing/index.aspx?CID=chip2010

2: Check your eMail and note your registration info. Install FILEminimizer Pictures 2.0 and use the Registration info from the eMail you received.
     1: Registration Info
     2: Download Link

Enjoy it.

CHIP promo page is here:
http://www.chip.de/news/Gratis-Vollversion-Flinkes-Shrink-Tool-fuer-Fotos_42606694.html

Read more >>

Three Ways to Delete Stalled Print Jobs That Refuses To Be Cancelled

One of the most common annoyances for home PC users is down to their printers refusing to cancel any print jobs immediately when ordered to. Well, it’s a no-brainer that printers of modern days are just as unreliable and unstable as back in the days when they are just going mainstream (it’s beyond wonder why are we still stuck with the same technology for more than a decade...). 

But then Windows also has to be blamed for this fiasco. You see, when users create a print job, the files to be printed will first be spooled before sending to the Windows Temp folder awaiting calls from the hardware printer. So if the Temp files are being used by Windows, it is virtually impossible for users to delete anything...well, unless if you restart your machine. Curse you, Windows!

Therefore, to overcome the limitations of both printers and Windows, there are three options for cancelling print jobs without waiting for ages. The first is by the creation of a Windows Batch File, while the second is through specifically-designed software capable of overcoming the limitations. The third option is well...manual cancellation, which is of course for geeks and nerds with too much brain cells and time at hand.

1.    Delete Print Jobs Immediately via Windows Batch File

A Windows Service called Print Spooler is important to the spooling of files before and as they get to be printed. Therefore, stopping and restarting the service will allow Windows to immediately delete the print jobs. Under such theory, the batch file’s scripts will have to contain this:

@net stop spooler
@del %windir%\system32\spool\printers\*.* /q /f
@net start spooler

Simply open Notepad, copy and paste this 3-line script into it, and save it in any file name you like; without forgetting to add the all-important .bat file extension at the end of the file name. For example, you can save it under the name of ‘RefreshPrintSpooler.bat’ (without quotation). 

However, do note that this batch file will delete ALL print jobs, including functioning print jobs, so this method is less feasible on a print server; you’ll delete all print jobs in queue by executing this batch file regardless of them being working or stalled!

2.    Delete Print Jobs with Stalled Printer Repair, a free software from FantasticFreeware

Adam Pash of Lifehacker post this freeware up in case any users wanted the least geeky way to solve this problem: Delete Print Jobs is a utility that does the same job as the batch file above – only that it will only find and delete print jobs that are confirm stalled.

 Stalled Printer Repaired works on Windows 2000, XP and Vista, but Windows 7 should be able to run it as well.

Download Stalled Printer Repair here.



3.    Manually cancel print jobs and restarting the Printer Spooler Services.

This is a manual process of fixing stalled print jobs and is essentially a non-scripted version of the first method shown previously. Because of different printers and different Windows version, the steps below are optimized to suit all Windows version and on all types of printers:

1.    Make sure all working print jobs are complete and that no new print jobs are being submitted.
2.    Open Windows Task Manager and on the Processes tab, locate spoolersv.exe and kill it.
3.    Open the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\PRINTERS in My Computer.
4.    Delete all files located in this folder. Files in the Printers are named xxxx.spl, xxxx.shd where xxxx is a hexadecimal number. Files with .shd and .spl extensions are printer files.
5.    Open the ‘Run…’ console and type in ‘services.msc’
6.    Find a Windows Service called ‘Print Spooler’ and start the service. Your printer is now functioning properly again.

Regardless of which method you like to use, you can be assured that the stalled printer job handling is officially a thing of the past!

Read more >>

Get Registry First Aid 7 Free License Key

I received a tip-off from punyu14 via mail that Avanquest is currently holding a promotion for Registry First Aid 7 (thanks to punyu14!) and since i'm a fan of Registry First Aid, i decided to share it here. Registry First Aid is a very effective and all-featured registry utility. It has features such as cleaning the Windows registry, taking registry snapshots to trace registry entries of software, registry search functions and a separate backup and monitoring module to protect the registry.


And it is a pretty safe and easy-to-understand tool as well! Registry First Aid understand that not all of us a good at understanding the keys and hives of registries so it designed its software to be as easily understood as possible. Users have the option of backing up their registry before scan and cleaning, and as far as i am concerned, it has never deleted any registry entry that would corrupt the PC, so its pretty stable, to say the least.


Now, thanks to Avanquest, you can get a Registry First Aid v7 for free! Simply visit this German promotional site from Avanquest, key in your information and wait for you license key to arrive in your mailbox!


The details to be filled in are:


1st Column: Your E-mail
2nd Column: Confirm your E-mail
3rd Column: Your Name
4th Column: Your First Name

Radio button selection question: I use this software primarily for: a) Personal Purpose
                                                                                                      b) Professional Purpose
Checkbox selection question: What kind of software are you interested in? (You can simply select any)


After you fill in your information, click the bottommost button 'Here is Your License Key' to confirm and Avanquest will send you a license key to your mail!


P.S: Again, thanks to punyu14 for the tips!

Read more >>

Free Paragon CampTune 7.5 for Mac Till 2400GMT April 03, 2010

Hi Friends,

I received an update on downloadjunkie.co.uk through RSS reader that they are offering Paragon CampTune 7.5 for Mac. It is not the current version. The latest version is 8 which costs around $20. But if you are using Mac and Windows OS is also being used, Paragon CampTune 7.5 would be a good choice for you.

Apple Boot Camp makes it possible to set up a dual boot system between Windows and Mac OS X. Unless you have planned ahead particularly well, it is likely that you will find that one operating system has been assigned more disk space than it needs while the other is lacking in breathing room.

Ordinarily, the only option would be to wipe out one of the operating systems before resizing partitions and reinstalling. However, Campetune offers and alternative, making it possible to redistribute drive space between Windows and OS X.

The program installation guides you through the process of creating a bootable CD that can then be used to access the tool. After creating the bootable disc, you will need to boot your Mac from it and Camptune will automatically run. You can then use the Redistribute HFS Wizard to resize partitions to suit your requirements - this can be achieved by simply moving a slider and the software will take care of the hard work for you.

Article can be found here:
http://www.downloadjunkie.co.uk/2010/04/paragon-camptun.html

Download web page:

http://store.v3.co.uk/?act=details&id=4697

Registration web page:

http://www.paragon-software.com/registration/camptune75.html

Read more >>

Test-Driving NANO Antivirus, a New Antivirus From Russia

It's been a while since i did a full evaluation of any new antivirus software on the market, but i managed to dig out some time to test NANO Antivirus recently. I already heard about NANO Antivirus quite a couple of months ago, but didn't have the time to fully test it. For your information, this NANO antivirus is a legitimate Russian-based antivirus currently in beta-testing stage and SHOULD NOT be confused with nanoav, a rogue antivirus currently still in the wild.

NANO Antivirus, according to the official website, is founded on 2009 with about 20 or more professional programmers, virus analyst, tester, and admin staffs. They plan to offer NANO Antivirus as a freeware with the aims of providing reliable real-time protection for users. The official website also allows users to create an account. They even have a twitter account!

Here are the specifications of my test of NANO Antivirus:

Antivirus release version: 0.6.0.18 Beta (released 19 March 2010)
Test Machine: Windows Virtual PC 2007 (with 700MB of RAM allocated)
Operating System: Windows XP Service Pack 2 (with all security patches and updates)
Environment: No antivirus installed on Virtual Machine, Antivirus protection on Windows 7 (Host Machine) suspended. Virtual Machine runs on a Shared Networking rule.

Installation:

Installation of NANO Antivirus runs smoothly, although at one point it sort of held up time as it was trying to unpack its database. Overall, except for the unpacking part, everything is smooth and with minimal interaction. Like Avira Antivir Free, NANO Antivirus does not require a restart to go into full protection mode after installation, which is a BIG plus.

The User Interface:

 NANO Antivirus has a pretty attractive GUI with white, green and dark-brown color scheme: and that's the default GUI; users can have the option of using the even more simpler GUI, dubbed 'Basic' by NANO Antivirus. Like a lot of standard antivirus nowadays, NANO Antivirus have an animated sidebar panel on the left, a simple logo on the upper left corner and a tabbed interface at the center. 

There are a lot of features integrated into NANO Antivirus. Users can easily change any protection settings, edit the Quarantine area, password-protect security settings, configure proxy-server connection, view event logs and many scan paths. All the features are working as well.

How's its detection rate?

Is NANO Antivirus able to protect users? I have a collection of malwares compressed in WinRAR which consists of a dozen of Trojan Downloaders, Droppers, Backdoors, Sniffers, Botnets, Worms, Virus, Hoax Tool and even some Rootkits and DoS. Which makes up for 121 malware samples. I transfered all these malwares into the virtual Windows XP at the same time and NANO Antivirus stopped me...well, it proceeds to check these transfered malwares one at a time, which does make me tired, really. 

At the end of the transfer, NANO Antivirus detected about 97 of the malwares, as 24 malware samples made their way into the Virtual Machine. I did a system scan in the virtual machine, and NANO Antivirus identified five out of the remaining 24 samples. The conclusion is that: NANO Antivirus have approximately 84% detection rate, both real-time and on-demand scan combined. Out of the 19 samples that NANO Antivirus failed to identify, a majority of them are Exploits and DDoS while a few of them are Rootkits, Trojan Downloaders and Packed Trojans. Interestingly, it detected and eliminated ALL virus, worms, P2P Trojans and Backdoors.  

How's its performance?

NANO Antivirus itself does not seem like a drag, since it works pretty smoothly on the Virtual Machine. But when i run a scan and open up the Task Manager, this is what i got:

NANO Antivirus uses nearly half the CPU cycle available and more than 140,000K of RAM, which is an insane amount. I turned off the scan and examine the Task Manager again; this time, CPU cycle falls down to 0 cycles, but the RAM usage still peaks at around 130,000K, which is not impressive at all...even if i don't feel any lags with the antivirus or the Virtual machine...Later when i visited their support forum, i learned that the developers are still working on a solution to the RAM problem. Good luck (?)

How about responsiveness of Windows Explorer and browsing speed? I toured around the system files folders and browsed a few webpages inside the Virtual Machine, and everything is smooth and fine. 

The conclusion:

NANO Antivirus is pretty hungry on RAM during idle and scanning, but its own performance is pretty fast and its overall impact on PC speed is minimal.

Overall, i believe that this is one of the better free antivirus i've found on the market for quite some time, although it is still under beta development. At the present time, they'll need to work on perfecting their detection rate and finding a solution to reduce the amount of RAM required, but once they are complete and released with good advertising and promotions, I think they can well be challenging the antivirus market, just like how Microsoft Security Essentials had done.


Visit my Beta Tests page for download links to the latest NANO Antivirus Beta.

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The New Avira Antivir v10: New Look, New Performance & Still Free!!!

Avira is popular in the antivirus industry thanks in no small part to its lightweight performance, high detection rate and free-for-use version, dubbed 'Personal Edition' in the market. After months of beta testing for the Avira Premium Security Suite v10, it is finally released - and a remarkable release too.


The new Avira antivirus spots a slicker and enhanced interface, new set of features, optimized performance and it is still free. I downloaded a copy of it and evaluated it immediately even though i have Avast! installed on my PC (though it is not advisable, i realized that the latest version of both Avira and Avast! worked pretty well together!).

New GUI, New Feel:

Avira's previous interface looks simple but dull-looking compared to other free antivirus like Avast!, Rising and Microsoft Security Essentials. One improvement user will immediately spot on this latest release is its overall looks. Avira have designed a new desktop icon that reflects on Windows 7's Superbar too; it tweaked its interface a little to give it a slicker look and added interactive & glossy, colored icons to its main GUI.

New Set of Features:


Avira PE added a few interesting detection categories in its protection module which can be noticed on Avira's Protection Settings Panel and also during the installation setup. With such new features, you can expect Avira to do an even more thorough protection of your machine - even if it is free.

The above screenshot says it all: Avira has added three extra protection categories to the free version of Avira Antivir which includes backdoor clients, double-extension files and programs with domain violation characteristics. From the new category's looks, it seems like Avira is starting to pay importance to eliminating the sources of malwares: which are those supposedly legitimate programs that in fact, can allow malwares to sneak into a user's computer. If we assume that it also means real-time exploit protection, then Avira is really becoming more powerful as it was in detection.

New Performance:


Avira's complete scan used to be quite slow, especially during the first-ever go; it has become a thing of the past though. My PC has both Windows Vista and Windows 7 installed in different partitions on which previous scans with the older Avira would take at least half-an-hour or more, depending on the idle state of the PC. I did a complete scan of both partitions and the new Avira took only around twenty minutes or so, which is impressive.

The new Avira is possibly also good at rooting out rogue orphan files which refuses to go away. My complete scan found no virus, but instead detected one orphan file which i recognized as a remnant of a failed F-Secure Utilities Pack beta uninstallation. Avira alleged it was a system file which contains unwanted behaviors and since i don't need the file anyway, i let Avira clean it.


It Is Still Free:

Like Avast! and AVG often stressed, users can depend on free antivirus for protection and Avira also supports the statement. Avira PE v10 is still free for use, and will automatically prompt for free license update once the expiration occurs. Even though it is annoying that Avira simply refuse to remove the advertisement that often popped up after a database update, it caused little problems as i can manually remove it or with specifically-designed Avira ad-remover.


If you haven't try your hands on Avira Antivir Personal Edition yet, this is the day to do so. For experienced users, it is advisable to upgrade to this latest release: it is worth the effort - and what more can i say when it is now even better and still free to all?


Download Avira Antivir PE now.


To remove the Avira ads, you can do it manually (instructions for all contemporary versions of Windows included) OR download and run this removal tool.

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Ninite and FreeApp Automatically Take Care Of Your Important Installations While You're Slacking...Literally!

A true PC technician's busiest encounter would be to reformat/reinstall a user's Windows when their old Windows failed due to corrupted system files, severe virus infections or maybe they just want to get thing freshen up. We are talking about a full reinstallation of the Windows partition, reinstallation of the software that have been formatted away and the updating of Windows with multiple security patches; that full process could take a really long time, especially the updating and software-installation part. Surely we wouldn't want to spend more time searching for and download all the latest inportant software manually?


Fortunately, there are solutions to this problem, and freeware program Ninite is one of them. Well, in case you are searching for a free alternative to Ninite, then FreeApp will suit you just fine too!
 

Any simple search of Ninite on the internet will bring up many results, so i will discuss about FreeApp in this post. Like Ninite, FreeApp lets users choose the programs they like, prompt FreeApp for a single installer, and when the installer is done downloading, users can just run the installer and take a break away from his or her PC as the installation works away...without user interaction at all!

If you take careful notice, you'll realized that both Ninite and FreeApp offers an almost similar range of software, but then there are difference in the two of them; . Firstly, Ninite have an additional category that focused on developer-friendly software which common users will have no need for. Ninite also have a no-nonsense way of going about downloading and installing the software. However, FreeApp gave a wider range of control to users, giving user the option to choose the installation path they want (for example, if users install software in D drive). FreeApp will also automatically skip installed software and proceed to install those that have not yet been installed, whereas Ninite, seemingly blind towards installed software, will continue to install on top of existing software, which does seem a bit weird...

In short, both tools are great utilities that will shorten your effort of having to find and download the latest software for installation. 


Try Ninite here. (Note that you can give suggestions on which software can be added to Ninite's existing list)


Try FreeApp here (Note that FreeApp is still in beta stage and more features and software choice might be added in the future)

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Get Free Paragon NTFS For Mac OS X 6.5 (Save $40)

This is a quick and short article for Mac users. PeterB sent me a message few minutes ago and informed me that Paragon is giving away its NTFS For Mac OS X 6.5. This is bit old version and they are going to release v8 in near future. NTFS For Mac OS X 7 is already for sale.

Thank you PeterB for informing me. Because of weekend, I was not in a mode to write anything but ... I did.

• Completely and instantly access all Windows files and folders with your Mac®.
• Easy, safe installation and usage on Mac® or Windows.
• Unhampered data exchange between PC and Mac®.
• Share Windows files as a Mac® user via external disk drives.
• Get access to Windows video files on your Mac® to cut and post-produce them.
• Get access to .doc- and .pdf-files on your Mac®.
• Make any version of NTFS a native file system for Mac® OS X - no restrictions, full support!
• “NTFS for MAC OS X 6.5” It provides all the functionality of 7th version except for MAC- Browser (Utility to work with HFS-formatted volumes under Windows). Enjoy this must have tool as long as you need. 

Mac Users: a question for you from PeterB

if someone has a Mac (i don't) please tell what the registration page is?

I, too, do not have Mac.

Paragon Twitter is http://twitter.com/ParagonFree

Open the following web address into your browser and download Paragon NTFS For Mac OS X 6.5.

http://www.paragon-software.com/free/giveaway.html

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