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Enat's Best of Free Newsletter
Issue: 2
Date: 5/16/03
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In This Issue: Great Utilities!!!
1) Anti-Virus
2) Firewalls
3) Spyware Detectors
4) System Info
5) Windows Tweakers
6) Windows Updates
7) Enat's Freeware/Enat's Stuff
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Woh! The second issue already. This is harder than it looks. I think I'll cut down on
the issue lengths for now. Well this issue is all about utilities I think everyone
should have. Instead of offering many choices of the utilities in this issue I choose
the one I think is best and say why it's better than the other popular ones.
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1) Anti-Virus
Now everyone has heard of the two most famous anti-virus software, McAfee and Norton.
But Many people don't know that there are a few free anti-virus programs that have
updates just like the paid ones.
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Online Scanners:
These tend to be slow and usually can't remove the viruses but they do a fair
job of detecting viruses. If you have trouble, disable your firewall if you have one.
-Symantec Online Virus Scanner (from the people who make Norton Anti-Virus):
http://security.symantec.com/default.asp?productid=symhome&langid=ie&venid=sym
-Trend Micro Housecall Scanner:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
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Offline Scanners:
This two are really close to each other. But I had some trouble with the email scanner
in AVG when trying to get it to work with Outlook Express and Eudora. So my pick is to
avast! (even though the email scanner for it is not working for me now)
AVG Anti-Virus
-Comes with everything you need, Email Scanner(Which for some reason gave me
problems, I am trying to get it working now), Resident Protection, and of course a normal
virus scanner. I like the User Interface much better than avast. The company says the
updates are generally monthly. It found a virus avast didn't but the virus was
from a program that the company knew that some anti-viruses would detect it
and they said it did nothing.
Windows Download:
http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_downl.htm?session=31894889d06334e23f581fb776710cb9
Avast! 4 Home Edition
-Comes with everything like AVG mail scanner, resident protection, updates, etc.
They claim they have weekly updates. It seems to work great for me email scanner and
all. But I currently have had some trouble with the email scanner ever since
I installed AVG. Also I HATE the user interface, they tried too hard to make it easy
and the program lacks labels for the buttons.
Windows Download:
http://www.avast.com/avast4/home_ed.html
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2) Firewalls
Firewalls, you know, a giant wall of fire protecting your computer from evil hackers,
well sort of. Software Firewalls stop hackers to some extent but they also are good at
keeping viruses and spyware from accessing the internet. Set-up is fairly simple,
you run all programs that use the internet, the firewall will pop up with a message
asking if you want to allow the program to access the internet and you choose yes.
This should work for all programs except full-screen games. For those games I suggest
disabling the firewall before you play the game because the firewall can sometimes
keep you from playing with other people online. Also some internet games don't work
with the firewall on, so if a game doesn't work try disabling the firewall.
My pick of the best firewall goes to Outpost Firewall. Although not as
popular as Zonealarm, it takes up less system resources when it's running in
the background. Zonealarm does have an easier to use interface but to me system
resources are vital on my slow system, so other programs (mostly games) aren't
slowed down. Outpost is easy enough to use and seems to block a few hackers
(form the attack detentions it shows).
Windows Download:
http://www.agnitum.com/download/outpostfree.html
If you want zone alarm check out: http://www.zonelabs.com/
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3) Spyware Detectors
Few people know about spyware, programs that usually come with other programs you
download that basically spy on you. Some spyware collects personal information,
while other spyware may study your internet habits. Your probably saying at the moment
"Oh my, I must delete the spyware immediately!" But the problem is some spyware
is legitimate and some spyware is needed to have the program they came with work properly.
So the delema is to remove it or not. Well my pick for a spyware scanner can
simply scan for spyware and/or remove it.
Spybot Search and Destroy
Has an update button for updating spyware definitions, scans and removes spyware,
easy to use. Can even integrate into Internet Explorer and stop you from downloading
spyware in the first place. I highly suggest you get this.
Windows Download:
http://security.kolla.de/
A more popular spyware detector which I personally don't like as much is Ad-Aware
available at http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
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4) System Info
Did you buy your computer from somewhere and you want to know all the little parts inside
it and who makes them? Need to know what kind of Motherboard you have? Do you know what kind
of video card you have? Well there are some free programs that can tell you all this for you.
My favorite, and the most extensive one I've seen is Aida32.
Aida32
Not only does it tell you what kind of video card, sound card and moniter you have, it has
very extensive reports and can even tell you who makes each individual stick of ram installed
inside your computer.
Windows Download:
http://www.aida32.hu/
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5) Windows Tweakers
These programs change a variety of settings that you can't do in windows without a registry
edit. The things you can do vary from adding thing to a right click menu to removing a standard
desktop icon. You'll Just have to Download them and see.
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TweakUI
One of the more popular tweaking tools. I like it and it was the only thing that wuld solve my
problem of auto-running my cds when I put them in.
Windows Xp Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp
Windows 95,98,ME,NT,2000 Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/powertoys/networking/nttweakui.asp
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X-Setup
This one is slightly harder to use but can do more advanced things. I suggest it, but I have
heard one occasion where it cause system problems after installing it, but I've had no problems.
Windows Download: (It's the first item on the list at the site)
http://www.xteq.com/downloads/
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FreshUI
This one I haven't experimented with much, but it seems to be fairly easy to use and has a wide
range of tweaks, mostly for Microsoft Applications. You may want ot check it out.
Windows Download:
http://www.freshdevices.com/freshui.html
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6) Windows Updates
Now you all know about the normal Windows Update (Start> Wiundows Update) But I have
found a program that will find more updates for you than windows update will,
and it will also give you reminders to do things like back-up your registry.
This program is called:
BigFix
It Scans for Updates and patches for Windows and other Microsoft Applications (Media Player,
Outlook, Internet Explorer) It can run in the system tray or can run when you start
it up. It seems to find many things Windows Update doesn't, even though the patches
are form Microsoft.
Windows Download:
http://www.bigfix.com/
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8) Enat's Freeware/Stuff
From now on use the address http://enat.cjb.net to go to Enat's Stuff. The other
redirection address went down, just as my webhost. Sorry for the downtime.
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I NEED YOUR HELP!
Please suggest this newsletter to your friends. Just Send them to
http://enat.cjb.net and the Newsletter Link there is quite obvious.
I feel that 24 subscribers is too few. Hey who doesn't want
free stuff?
Also if you wish to comment or give suggestions on anything in this newsletter
please feel free to send them to enat66@hotmail.com
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posted on the http://enat.cjb.net website. Click on the newsletter link and scroll to the
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Enat is not at fault for problems the software he suggests causes.(
--Enat
Phew! I am done with this issue. This issue is smaller than the first but
I think I like this size :p