Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
December 2, 2007

Volume 3, Number 25 — Sunday, December 2, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 

4.  Computer Buying Tips — Selecting the New Computer

Some families will buy their first computer as a big Christmas present.  Other times, the new computer may be needed for school, or may be a replacement for an aging machine. No matter why you get one, the computer needs some security help before it connects to the Internet.

Consider a "middle-of-the-road" model, not just the cheapest and not the "bleeding edge of technology," either. You should buy a good machine, whether you want to buy your new computer at a local computer shop or purchase it by phone or the Internet from Dell.

If your goal is high-end computer gaming, especially flight-simulation and "first person shooters," you will need a fast machine -- such as Alienware High-Performance Gaming PCs – Bringing Your Games to Life with the Highest-Quality Components.

If you're interested in the more modest computer, a desktop or notebook from HP may be just what you need. They've got specials on desktops, notebooks, printers and digital cameras this year.

Check whether you can expand the memory in the new computer. Memory is usually one of the high-priced manufacturer upgrades for computers -- while you can usually find much better deals elsewhere.

I use and recommend Crucial.com for memory for desktops and notebooks. They have an excellent Wizard to help you figure out which memory you need. I saved almost $200 by buying my Dell Inspiron notebook with minimum memory and then buying 2GB of RAM from Crucial.

A notebook computer makes an interesting alternative for a main computer — that's what my primary computer is! But, notebooks are notorious for not being upgradeable. Sure you can add memory or replace the hard drive -- but that is all. For the corresponding amount of power, a desktop computer may be roughly 60% of the price of the corresponding laptop.

Look for expandability in a desktop computer. A sleek, slim model may look nice, but if you can not add another hard drive, it may not be a good choice.

You can buy or build an external hard drive for extra disk space. However, that is not the best way to use them. See my article on external hard drives for related comments.

5.  My Computer Security Software Recommendations

Anti-Virus

I no longer recommend Trend Micro's products. At this point, my sole recommendation for anti-virus is NOD32 from ESET, which is my choice for my family's computers.

That may change, but at this time, Trend Micro's PC-cillin Internet Security — is reporting at least one Commission Junction URL as "Dangerous." The URL that was flagged was the domain for the ad's image. PC-cillin recommended that users close their web browsers and not visit the site that linked to it again. My issue is that Commission Junction is a well-respected affiliate sales system used by many computer and non-computer-related companies.

Interestingly enough, Trend Micro sells its products through Commission Junction's affiliate system, too, including using the same domain that they complain about.

Obviously someone at Trend Micro made a mistake, but since this subject came up on an ad image displayed on my site, the warning was given to a user visiting my site! Totally unacceptable.

I'm often asked about several other popular anti-virus or anti-virus combination packages. Yes, I realize that they are not in my recommendation list. "Enough said..."

My personal choice is the ESET's small, fast NOD32 anti-virus program, which offers a FREE 30-day evaluation license. I consider NOD32 to be the cream of the crop in anti-virus protection. Unlike some of the others, ESET offers multiple-year licenses also, including updates to the program in the multiple-year license.

Many antivirus programs will offer you an anti-virus signature subscription renewal when your subscription renews. I strongly recommend against this option. Vendors routinely improve the capabilities and speed fo the programs also.

If you update only the signatures, you miss any program improvements. Fortunately, NOD32's subscriptions include both program updates and signature updates.

Read more about anti-virus programs on my web site.

Related articles:

• Anti-Virus Programs and Online Scanners
• Free Online Antivirus Scan
• NOD32 Anti-Virus Review - A Look at NOD32

Firewall Software

If you get the PC-cillin Internet Security package above, you are covered from a firewall point of view.

While the Windows XP firewall is much better than no firewall at all, don't count on the Windows XP firewall to meet your needs. You need a two-way firewall, which the Windows XP firewall is not!.

The Windows XP firewall does not control outbound communications originating from your computer — and you should want to have control if adware/trojans/spyware or even commercial products want to talk to the Internet.

Do you want Windows Media Player to call home every time you play something? It does! Do you use the Search function in Windows Explorer to find things on your hard drive? Did you know that every time you search, Windows Explorer talks to Microsoft — I didn't know that when I ran ZoneAlarm, but the Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall flags that for me, and I can stop or allow it to happen.

Many other programs call home when you run them, too.

If you don't get either of the above multi-function packages, I recommend my choice for a firewall program is Sunbelt Personal Firewall.

You can try the full-featured "paid version" of Sunbelt Personal Firewall free for 30 days — after that, you can register it or, if you're using it on a home non-business computer, you can let it revert to the free, lesser-function license. Sunbelt Personal Firewall is $19.95 (with discounts for multiple computers!) for a non-expiring license for the program and includes one year of their updates subscription.

Related articles:

• The Internet Versus You
• Do I Need a Firewall Program?
• Sunbelt Personal Firewall Review

Anti-Spyware / Anti-Adware Software

CounterSpy, from Sunbelt Software, has received many kudos from the computer press for its always-running and periodic full system scans. It is also my personal choice for my PC's and my family's PC's.

Sunbelt released their CounterSpy v2 in early February and I promptly updated my computers to it. Version 2 greatly improved CounterSpy's performance and reduced its load on the computer when it was scanning.

Recently (late July, 2007), Sunbelt released v2.5 of CounterSpy, which again both improved CounterSpy's performance against malware and reduced its impact on system resources and responsiveness when its scanning.

Related articles:

• Fighting Against Spyware & Malware
• CounterSpy Review

Anti-spam Software

In today's Internet world, the question is not "if" you will get spam, but "how much will you get?"

I use and now I recommend POPFile as my first choice for handling spam. POPFile sits on your computer, between your email program and your ISP mailbox, and handles emial as it downloads.

POPFile uses a different approach to handle spam than some other programs do — it does nothing to reduce spam. It is designed as an email classification tool — you train it to recognize spam and any other type of email that you want to classify. These classifications can help you sort your emails into appropriate folders in your email program.

Sunbelt Software, who makes the anti-spyware program CounterSpy (which I use and recommend) and the firewall that I use and recommend (Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall) also has a well-regarded, award-winning anti-spam program called iHateSpam for Outlook and Outlook Express. Since I don't use Outlook or Outlook Express for email, I haven't tried iHateSpam.

Mailwasher Pro is my first choice to handle spam before it ever gets into your computer's Inbox. Mailwasher Pro uses on-line Realtime Black Lists mail servers sending spam recently, "training" by you of what you think is spam, and your own "friends" and "blacklist" lists.

Mailwasher Pro can even bounce spam messages, as if your email address was not valid, although the usefulness and appropriateness of this is questionable. There is a free version called "Mailwasher," but it omits the functions that I consider critical for this purpose -- such as safely previewing the emails safely before they ever get to your email inbox.

Cable/DSL Router

If you have a cable modem or a DSL modem, you need to have another layer of inexpensive protection between you and the Internet. A cable/DSL router isolates your computer from direct connection to the Internet. Your computer can easily request your email, web pages, etc. through the router. The responses come back to the router and are smoothly routed to your computer. But, someone on the Internet side of the router can not initiate a connection to your computer — they can only respond to your request.

Even if you only have one computer to connect to your cable or DSL modem, I recommend that you purchase and use a cable/DSL router because of the protection it can give you against attempts to attack through some flaws in Windows itself.

A router isolates your local network, whether it is only one computer or several, from the Internet by actually making it a separate network. The router gets the "public" IP address and handles all your outbound communications and the responses to them. But, it blocks computers on the Internet side from being able to initiate communications with your computer! This will prevent you from falling prey to many worms that try to attack security holes in Windows itself.

For a wireless router, I recommend the Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I'm using the relatively new version 6 of this router.

If you don't want wireless, I recommend the Linksys BEFSR41 wired router. Either way, based on my experience, I recommend Linksys routers for price, reliability and Linksys' habit of releasing updated firmware for their products..

See these related articles:

• Wireless Security
• Wi-Fi Hotspots and Computer Security
• Wireless Networking Problems & Wireless Networking Security