AVG Antivirus Free 2013 download available

By Martin Brinkmann on September 6, 2012 - Tags:Windows software

AVG Technologies today has released the annual update for their AVG Free Antivirus 2013 security application for Windows introducing new and improved features as well as a new user interface. AVG Anti-virus Free is one of the most popular free antivirus solutions for Windows PCs. It has grown in recent years from an application that was designed purely to protect the system from malicious software, to a program that does a lot more than just that. Critics say the program has become bloated because of that and there is certainly some truth to that when you look at the included modules:

• Antivirus protection
• Email Scanner
• Linkscanner
• Social Networking Protection
• Do Not Track
• Identity Protection
• WiFi Guard

Good news is that you can disable several of the modules that you do not need during installation, so that they won’t be installed along with the core antivirus app. You can block the installation of the AVG gadget, personal e-mail scanner, identity protection and AVG Surf-Shield during installation.

Bad news that the installer contains offers to install AVG Secure Search as the default search provider and the AVG Security toolbar in supported web browsers. To avoid this, select custom install and make sure the items are unchecked before you proceed with a click on next.

First thing you will notice when you start the program is the new user interface that displays the protection status and links to core program features.

You do find advertisement for the company’s own Antivirus 2013 and Internet Security scattered throughout the interface. About a fifths of the interface is reserved for ads that highlight some of the benefits of upgrading to one of the company’s commercial offerings. AVG thankfully included an option to hide that notification so that it does not get into your way all the time.

You will also find upgrade hints in various modules. The email scanner for instance highlights that spam protection is available in the commercial products on top of the email scanning of the free version.

So what is new in AVG Antivirus Free 2013?

We have previously mentioned that AVG Linkscanner has been discontinued and replaced by AVG Secure Search. The tool is available as a standalone download and also as part of the latest Antivirus free iteration. It is basically Linkscanner plus the AVG Security Toolbar, and – optional – changes to the browser’s default homepage and search provider. You can disable the inclusion by selecting the custom install option.

WiFi Guard is another new feature, which according to AVG, “helps you avoid rogue Wifi access points used by hackers by alerting you when your PC tries to access such a network”. Windows may connect your PC to a wireless network that you have been connected to in the past if it has the same name, even though it may not be the same network. WiFi Guard will recognize this for you and display a notification so that you have time to disconnect from the network. This module has actually been included in AVG 2012 updates.

Do not track is another feature that AVG introduced in a 2012 lineup update. It informs AVG users about data collected by Internet sites. The feature collects information about ad networks, social buttons and web analytics that you come across on the Internet, giving you options to block some or all of the scripts from your browser to protect yourself from being tracked by the scripts.

AVG Antivirus Free 2012 includes the following additional changes and improvements:

• Reduced footprint while running when compared to the 2012 release
• Better detection algorithm
• File reputation, a cloud based service that improves the program’s detection capabilities

The program is a bit heavy on the notification side of things. You can disable some or all notifications, e.g. scan finished, under Options > Advanced Settings. Here you can also disable the boot time improvement notifications that you may see on reboots or new starts of the system.

Here is a video that is announcing the new version and the thought process behind it.

Download

AVG Antivirus Free 2013 is available as a web installer and offline installer. The web installer has a size of 4 Megabytes and will download the rest of the installation files from the Internet during installation. The offline installer is available as a 32-bit and 64-bit version, with a size of 118 Megabytes and 130 Megabytes respectively, that includes all components and does not require an Internet connection during installation.  Both versions can be downloaded on this page.

Processes

AVG uses several processes while running. You need to enable Show processes from all users to display them all. Please note that you may have additional or less processes depending on the modules that you have installed with the program:

• avgcsrva.exe – the core scanning module, server part
• avgemca.exe – the email scanner
• avgidsagent.exe – the identity protection service
• avgnsa.exe – AVG online shield service and resident shield service
• avgui.exe – user interface, only process running under the user account
• avgwdsvc.exe – watchdog service

Closing Words

The new interface is definitely  a step in the right direction, as are the options to block certain modules from being installed with the program. I’d highly suggest to use a custom install to remove all the security modules and offers that you do not want installed on your system.

Windows 8: The return of the browser choice screen

By Martin Brinkmann on September 6, 2012 - Tags:Web browser, Windows 8

I had hopes that the EU would not force Microsoft to integrate the browser choice screen, or browser ballot as it was called, in its newest Windows 8 operating system. Why? Because it does not make sense. If you know about other web browsers, chance is high that you are already using a different browser as your default browser, and in this case, won’t get to see the browser choice screen anyway. If you do not know about other browsers, you won’t be able to make an educated decision about the browsers offered to you as you are only presented with a paragraph of text created by the creators of the browser. And while you could do some research to find the best browser for you, or pick one or multiple browsers from the list to test them out, it is likely that the majority of users won’t go through that length.

Anyway, if you have installed the Windows 8 RTM on a system and are currently residing in a country that is forcing this upon its citizens, then you will find an important update on Windows Update. The update does not get installed automatically, likely because it is being held back and unleashed once the final version of the OS comes out.

You can however install the update manually, and if you do and restart your PC, you will notice that the browser choice screen gets loaded on the next start. That is, unless you have installed  a program or tweaked the system to skip the start page on boot. If you did, you won’t see the options menu as it is a startpage app. What’s interesting in this regard is that it is possible to load Metro apps right on system boot.

You can select to install any of the browsers offered to you – Safari is missing – click on tell me more links for additional information, use the select later button to not make a decision at this point in time, or close the window by click-dragging the window from top to bottom (or using Alt-F4). You can reopen the app at any time as it is linked on the start page and classic desktop for easy access., or remove that tile with a right-click and the selection of unpin from start.

Here are important information about the browser choice screen:

• Browsers that you have already installed won’t be removed from the operating system when you select to install a different browser. It may happen that they are updated though. The update will however unpin Internet Explorer from the system’s taskbar.
• Users in the following countries will receive the Browser Choice update: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
• The browser descriptions may appear in English and not your native language if the creators of the browser have not provided Microsoft with a translated version for that language.

What’s your take on the integration of browser choice in Windows 8? (thanks Ilev for the tip)

Firefox: see if increased memory consumption is caused by addons

By Martin Brinkmann on September 5, 2012 - Tags:Firefox add-ons, Firefox Tips, mozilla

Mozilla fixed most add-on memory leaks in Firefox 15, and while that is a good thing and all, some users have reported that they are witnessing the exact opposite, that Firefox 15 is gaining memory rapidly when the browser is in use. The majority of Firefox users should not see that behavior, but if you do, you probably would like an explanation why this is happening on your computer.

There are several – like always – explanations for this. While Mozilla did fix most add-on memory leaks, some remain, and you may have installed one add-on, or multiple add-ons, that still leak. This is for instance the case for the Scriptish add-on, a Greasemonkey fork, or the Speed Dialadd-on.

You have multiple options to find out if one of your addons is causing the leaks. Nicholas Nethercote notes that you can use the built-in error console for that. Click on Firefox > Web Developer > Error Console, or use Ctrl-Shift-J, to open it in the browser. Locate the filter at the top right and paste TypeError: can’t access dead object into it. If you see results, one of your add-ons is trying to access memory that has been cut by the browser. I suggest you work as usual for at least 15 to 30 minutes before you check for that to make sure the log is filled with information. Please note that this only reveals add-ons that started to leak after Mozilla implemented the memory improvements.

Another option that you have that requires a bit more of work on your side is to run Firefox without add-ons. The easiest way to do that is to start the browser in safe mode. For that you need to launch Firefox with the –safe-mode parameter. If you have the program pinned to your taskbar or startmenu, right-click it and select properties. Add the parameter to the end of the target field in the window. Firefox should now offer to start in safe mode. Make sure you accept that and not the reset option that is displayed as well. Firefox will start without add-ons, themes and other modifications.

Monitor the browser’s memory usage afterwards for a while to see if it stays on a normal level. If it does, one of your add-ons is the culprit. To find out which, you need to start Firefox in regular mode again, disable all of your add-ons, and enable them one by one to see which is causing the issues. You could try a divide and conquer strategy instead, enable half, disable half, to speed up things.

But there is a second reason for high memory usage in Firefox. Web services like Google Readermay also be responsible. Several Firefox users have reported that Google Reader is causing the memory to increase over time when it is open in the browser. If you are using Google Reader regularly, you may want to make sure to close and re-open the tab regularly to avoid this from happening, if you are affected.

JavaRa 2.0: manage Java on your PC

By Martin Brinkmann on September 7, 2012 - Tags:java, Portable software, Windows software

JavaRa is a sweet little program that allows you to manage Java on your PC. It comes with functionality to uninstall old Java versions, update the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to the latest version, install the latest version of Java, and perform a number of other features related to Oracle’s Java technology.

JavaRa 2.0 has just been released by its author, introducing several improvements to previous versions of the application. Please note that the JavaRa 1.1.6 legacy version remains available on the developer’s website as well. The core difference between the versions is that the legacy version does not require the Microsoft .Net Framework.

To use the program, simply download it to your computer and unpack it to a folder on the system. You can run it right from that folder without installation afterwards.

The program window displays the core options that are at your disposal.

• Update Java Runtime can use Oracle’s own jucheck.exe tool to check for and download updates, perform an online version check, or download and install the latest JRE version right away without check.
• Remove JRE offers to remove any version of Java that is currently installed on the system. It is recommended to try the official Java uninstaller first before you run the tool.
• Additional tasks lets you remove startup entries, check the Java version directly, and remove outdated JRE Firefox extension frmo the browser.

The new version offers improved detection of native JRE uninstallers, an option to automatically check for program updates, French interface translations (incomplete), file and directory removal support for the definition file format, and a fix for an issue that caused settings to be ignored.

JavaRa 2.0 is an excellent program for Windows users who either need to troubleshoot their Java installation, want a more comfortable way of updating it to the latest version, or need to remove Java from the system but can’t use the official uninstaller for that.

How to uninstall the AVG Security Toolbar

By Martin Brinkmann on September 7, 2012 - Tags:antivirus

AVG Technologies AVG Security Toolbar is included in the company’s latest range of security software, as a standalone application, and as a third party offer included in the installer of software such as TuneUp Ztilities, SlimCleaner or PowerIso. Yesterday’s release of AVG Antivirus Free 2013 included the AVG Security Toolbar as an offer, and if you did not select custom installation, you’d end up with the toolbar in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

So what’s the purpose of the toolbar? It ships with a link scanner that displays security information about websites. This is similar to what Web of Trust does. The toolbar itself offers search, weather information, a link to a speedtest and other features that are not really related to security.

Deactivate the AVG Security Toolbar

The toolbar is installed from outside the web browser, which comes with the issue that you can’t uninstall the toolbar from within the browser. What you can do however is disable the toolbar in the browser which blocks it from being loaded during browser start or use.

Firefox

Load about:addons in the browser’s address bar and locate the AVG SiteSafety plugin under plugins here. Click on disable to turn it off in the browser. The button should turn to enable, which you can click on to turn the toolbar on again in the browser.

Internet Explorer

To disable the AVG Security Toolbar in Internet Explorer, right-click the toolbar in the browser and uncheck the AVg Security Toolbar option of the context menu.

Uninstall the AVG Security Toolbar

Uninstallation of the toolbar depends largely on how it has been installed on the operating system. If you have installed it as a standalone program or as part of another software installation, you can remove the toolbar using the uninstall a program control panel applet of the operating system.

If you have installed the AVG Security Toolbar as part of another AVG product, you can remove it running the installer again and selecting to add or remove features when it comes up. just uncheck the toolbar here and click next to remove the toolbar from the system.

Please note that the option to remove individual features from the installation is not displayed if you run the uninstaller.

I’d recommend to close all browser windows before you run the uninstaller to make sure everything can be properly removed from the system without leftovers.

How to recover deleted Gmail messages

By Martin Brinkmann on August 25, 2012 - Tags:Gmail, messenger

Things can go wrong when you are working with a computer or relying on a set of data, and it does not necessarily have to be your fault to begin with. Emails for instance can be deleted accidentally or on purpose, maybe by an ex-girlfriend, colleague or friend who somehow managed to gain access to your Gmail account. Other possibilities include a successful hacking attempt and a hacker who likes to be destructive, or a service provider issue.

Whatever the reason may be, if emails get deleted that you still need, you need to find a way to recover them. If you have followed my advice and created regular Gmail backups you can access the deleted emails right from within the program’s interface. The guide by the way explains how to backup emails from different providers including Hotmail.

If you have no mail backups you still may have a chance to restore your deleted Gmail messages, if the following requirements are met:

• Mails have not been deleted from the Gmail trash
• Less than 30 days have passed since the deletion

When you delete emails in Gmail they are not deleted completely but moved to the trash of the service instead where they are kept until they are deleted by the owner of the account, or after 30 days of being stored in the trash.

To check whether the emails that you want to recover are still in the trash, do the following:

• Open the Gmail homepage and sign into your account
• Locate the trash on the left sidebar. You may need to click on the more link before you see it.
• You can alternatively enter in:trash in the search to display it directly.

• If you find your deleted messages here, you can restore emails by selecting them and then using the move button to move the emails to the inbox or another folder.
• You can alternatively use the select all option to recover all emails found in the trash at once.

If the deleted messages are not found here, you can try the following alternative options to recover them:

• Try to search for them. Maybe the messages have not been deleted but only moved to another folder. By searching for the messages, you make sure that this is not the case.
• Check the All Mail folder which you find listed on the left sidebar. You may need to click on the more link before it becomes available here
• Check mail forwarding settings. While that won’t let you recover your emails, someone may have configured Gmail to automatically forward some or all messages to another email address.
• While you are at it, check filters as well to make sure that mails do not get automatically deleted because of filtering rules

As a last resort, you can try and post a support request on the official Gmail forum. Hotmail users can check out how to recover deleted Hotmail messages for similar instructions.

Taskbar Pinner: pin anything to the Windows Taskbar

By Martin Brinkmann on August 29, 2012 - Tags:Windows software, windows taskbar

Microsoft introduced an update to the taskbar of the Windows operating system in Windows 7. Major improvements included the ability to pin programs permanently on the taskbar for faster access and the new jumplist feature that you could use to access previously used files or initiate specific program related actions. For a mail program, you could for instance open the write a new message page directly to save some time doing so.

Windows 8 has the same taskbar features but without the operating system’s start menu that Microsoft has removed in the upcoming OS.

Microsoft for some reason has only implemented options to pin programs and executable files to the Windows taskbar. Workarounds are available to change that, so that you can pin files and folders or hard drives to the taskbar as well.

Taskbar Pinner is a freeware program for Windows 7 and 8 that makes this more comfortable.It ships with the following four options:

• Pin a file
• Pin a folder
• Pin a Shell location
• Pin a Library

You can either click on one of the options presented to you in the main program window, or drag and drop the files or folders that you want to add to the Windows taskbar into the program interface.

When you click on the shell location or library option, you get a list of available locations and libraries in icon form that you can add to the taskbar. Shell locations include Windows Update, Search, Network connections, Personalization, Favorites, Control Panel or Computer among a few dozen other options. You can even select multiple icons at once to speed up the process further.

If you prefer to have the pinning feature available in Windows Explorer, you can check the Explorer context menu option in the program window to enable it in the operating system’s default file browser. A right-click on a file or folder in Explorer lets you then add those to the taskbar. (viaVishal)

Backup Box: Move cloud hosted files directly between providers and servers

By Martin Brinkmann on August 29, 2012 - Tags:Backup

Sometimes you may want to move files hosted somewhere on the Internet to another server or provider. While you could download the files to your local computer – if you do not have a local backup available – to upload them again to the new server or provider, you sometimes however may prefer to transfer files directly between servers.

A core benefit of this procedure is speed. Your home computer’s upload and download speed is usually fairly limited in comparison to the speed of Internet servers, so that it should take less time to move the files. You may however run into issues as well, with trust being one of the most important ones. If you want server to server communication, you need to trust those servers with data so that they communicate with each other.

Backup Box

And it is the same when you look at the Backup Box service. The service’s core feature are direct server to server transfers between cloud storage providers such as Box, Google Drive, SkyDrive, SugarSync or Dropbox, as well as custom servers that can be accessed via ftp or sftp. You configure Backup Box to transfer files from one server or provider to another. Why would you want to do that?

• To migrate your files to another cloud hosting provider
• To backup your websites regularly
• To backup databases
• To safe time transferring files

You do need to authorize at least two services or servers before you can start using the service. As far as cloud hosting services go, you do not have to enter your username and password on the Backup Box site. You instead authorize the site on the cloud providers website so that it can access your data, and you can naturally revoke that authorization at any time as well. Only ftp, sftp and MySQL servers need to be authorized directly by adding an authorized user account to Backup Box.

Once you have added at least two services you can configure transfers between them. You have got the option to transfer all files, or only select files or folders to the new server or service.

And instead of transferring files directly, you can alternatively schedule transfers so that they are run regularly by the application. You could for instance backup your website on a weekly basis, or transfer the files from your Dropbox account to SkyDrive once a month.

Another interesting option is the archive and timestamp feature which zips the selected files during the transfer. That’s useful if you need to make room on a server or an account.

Free account users  are limited to transferring 1 Gigabyte of data per transfer using a maximum of 10 transfers in that time. Pro, premium and enterprise accounts are available that raise limits and make available additional features such as incremental transfers.

It usually takes minutes before the first files start to appear on the selected server or cloud hosting account you are transferring the files to.

As far as security goes, Backup Box states that it is using 256-bit SSL encryption whenever supported to transfer files, that it wont retain files on their servers, and that Amazon S3 is used with a AES 256-bit encryption for temporary storage.

One Gigabyte per month won’t take you far, especially if you are thinking about scheduling regular backups of your websites or data that you host online.

PasteAsFile: Save Windows Clipboard entries to files in Windows Explorer

By Martin Brinkmann on August 29, 2012 - Tags:clipboard, Windows software

I have been working on Enterprise systems in the past were users were not permitted to install or run third party software on. This was a big issue if you had to create screenshots for the Intranet or presentations, as you were left with using the print screen to save them to the Windows Clipboard, pasting them into Microsoft Paint, and doing your best to get the screenshot in the shape you wanted it to be before saving it as an image on the system.

PasteAsFile is a free program for Windows that you can use to save Clipboard entries right from within Windows Explorer. It is a specialized application that you may like for its versatility. That said, alternatives are available that may be more appropriate for specific jobs. To name just a few:  Clipboard Help and Spell, Phrase Express or ClipUpload.

PasteAsFile adds a new context menu entry to Windows Explorer during installation. To save Clipboard data to a file, you simply right-click any folder – including the Windows Desktop – and select the Paste as File option from the context menu. A window is opened when you select the option. If you do not want to make any modifications, you can simply tap on the enter key or click on ok to save the file using the suggested settings.

You can alternatively change the name of the file, the file extension, and even the location. The program supports several text and image formats, so that you need to change the file extension if you do not want to save the file in the default format. PasteAsText supports jpg, pcx, png, bmp, tga, gif and tif image formats, as well as txt, rtf, doc, html, php and various other text formats.

Especially the coding related formats may come in handy. Say you have found code on a website that you want to save to your computer. With PasteAsFile, you copy the contents from the website to the clipboard, right-click on your desktop or a folder in Windows Explorer afterwards, to save it directly to your computer in the appropriate format.

I’d like to see an option to define a default format for both image and textual contents. Other than that, there is little need for improvement.

MediaFire with 50 Gigabyte free cloud storage, desktop client

By Martin Brinkmann on August 24, 2012 - Tags:Hosting

MediaFire is one of the largest file hosting sites that is still standing after the Megaupload fallout.  The service is especially well liked by users who download from it, as it does not force users to go through lots of hoops – like artificially limited the download bandwidth or only allowing one file download in a certain time frame – before downloads can be started on the site.

A MediaFire account gets you certain privileges in terms of hosting files on the service’s servers. All free users of the service for instance get 50 Gigabyte of free online storage that they can fill with their own data.  What’s remarkable in this regard is that the download bandwidth and number of simultaneous downloads are not restricted.

The maximum file size for free account owners is 200 Megabytes, which should be large enough for all file types but video files. What you also get with a free account is online document editing and viewing, 15 one-time links per day that you can share, and general file and folder sharing.

MediaFire’s service is not a cloud synchronization service like Dropbox, which means that you need to select the files and folders that you want to upload to the servers manually. You can either use the web interface to upload files, or the MediaFire Express client available for Windows, Mac and Ubuntu Linux.

You need to link your account in the program before you can start using it. Once that is out of the way, you can drag and drop files and folders onto the dropzone to upload the data to your online storage. MediaFire Express displays options to view the uploaded files online or get links pointing to the files from the interface.

You can view some document formats right on the MediaFire page, including Microsoft Office documents or pdf documents. Other formats, such as php can only be downloaded and not viewed online.

What free users need to know is that their data may be deleted after a certain account inactivity period. What this means is that files and folders remain in the account for as long as it is active. According to MediaFire, the usual time is anywhere between 150 days to 300 days before an account is marked as inactive. Users receive emails five days before that is happening to inform them of the consequences.

Paid users get additional features. For $9 per month, they get 250 Gigabytes of online storage, a maximum file size limit of 4 Gigabytes, no account expiration (for as long as the paid account is kept), an advertisement free environment, backups, statistics and a host of other features.

If you are looking for lots of storage online, and do not need synchronization features, then MediaFire’s offering may provide you with what you need in this regard.