Free Microsoft Anti Virus software

No date has yet been given for when the free software will launch
Microsoft is poised to start giving away security software.

The company is reportedly trialling free anti-virus software internally and said the beta version would be released “soon”.

Called Morro, the software will tackle viruses but lack the broader range of utilities, such as parental locks, found in paid-for security suites.

Morro will be Microsoft’s second venture in the highly competitive security market.

Microsoft’s first attempt revolved around the Windows Live OneCare service that did not succeed in turning many customers away from rivals such as Symantec and McAfee.

Microsoft plans to discontinue Live OneCare once the Morro software is ready.

No specific date has been given for when Morro will be released, but in the past Microsoft has said it would be out by the end of 2009 at the latest.

Microsoft said Morro would tackle viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans.

Janice Chaffin, Symantec’s president of consumer products, said customers wanted more than just basic protection.

“A full internet security suite is what consumers require today to stay fully protected,” she said.

Security software for home PCs typically cost around £30-40 and often allow users to install protections on more than one computer.

Other companies, such as AVG and Alwil already produce and distribute free anti-virus products.

Fake help

In its latest update, Microsoft added code that detects and deletes the widespread Internet Antivirus Pro family of fake security software programs.

Such programs, also known as scareware, have been proving more popular with hi-tech criminals in recent months.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group estimated that there were 9,287 bogus anti-malware program in circulation in December 2008 - a rise of 225% since January 2008.

The US government has moved to shut down some companies peddling the programs that falsely claim to find malicious software on PCs and then charge for the non-existent threats to be removed.

In addition, the Internet Antivirus Pro software displays fake Windows security messages to try and trick people into thinking the product is legitimate. The software also contains a password stealer that watches where people go online and grabs login data.

Safari 4 has logged 11 million downloads in its first four days of availability, according to Apple.

The company said that since the browser was first unveiled Monday at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, downloads have been steady for both the Mac and PC versions.

Advertisement”Safari 4 is an incredible success on Mac and Windows with more than 11 million downloads in the first three days,” said Apple senior vice president of product marketing Philip Schiller.

“Safari users love the incredible speed and innovative features like Top Sites, Full History Search and Cover Flow.”

Of the 11 million downloads, roughly six million have been from Windows users, while the remaining 5 million have been for MacOS X systems. Originally released as a Mac-only browser, the company first made Safari available to Windows users at the 2007 Worldwide Developer Conference.

Amongst the new features for the browser are the ability to view history files in the iTunes ‘cover flow’ style and improved archiving of browsing history. The update also fills some 51 security flaws.

Headlining the Safari 4.0 release, however, is the new Nitro JavaScript engine. The company said that the new engine significantly improves JavaScript performance and could get even faster when the company releases the 64-bit OS X Snow Leopard update later this year.

Symantec have uncovered a new form of security attack targeted towards users that use wireless keyboards.

The warning follows the release of Keykeriki, an open-source ’sniffer’ project that allows users to remotely decode wireless transmissions.  Symantec said that this effectively creates a new type of key-logger that could be used by cyber-criminals to steal sensitive data such as user names, passwords and bank details.

Symantec warned that, although the creator’s intentions appear honourable, making the software code and hardware schematics open to everyone means that criminals could use the software to eavesdrop on wireless keyboard inputs.  The criminals would not have to install anything on the host system, but would simply have to be in range of the keyboard’s wireless signal.  Remote-exploit.org claimed that it has plans for add-on modules that include an LCD display and an interface that works with an iPhone.

Symantec said that future wireless keyboards should introduce encrypted communication between the device and the receiver, and warned those working on office or public computers to resort to wired keyboards for the time being.

Users can combine contacts, email and calender

Google has launched Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, which it claims will allow customers to use both applications together seamlessly. The product will allow Outlook users to connect to Google Apps for their web-based email, contacts and calendar. Users can also access information from their work computer using the Gmail interface when they are elsewhere. AdvertisementRobert Whiteside, head of Google Enterprise UK, explained that the service was designed to encourage more businesses to take to Google Apps Premier. “This just adds to the Google Apps offline capabilities we added recently, and the BlackBerry support,” he said. “It will allow businesses deploying Google Apps across the enterprise to continue using Outlook until their rollout is complete.” Whiteside claimed that Google Apps Sync will provide “extremely tight” integration between the two offerings. For example, users can accept a meeting request sent through Outlook in their Google Apps calendar, and their contacts will be completely synchronised. A simple two-click data migration tool, meanwhile, will allow employees to easily copy existing data from Exchange or Outlook into Google Apps.

Faster Broadband!

Broadband speeds are getting faster for some
BT Broadband is boosting the speeds of millions of its customers to up to 20 megabits per second at no extra cost.

The rollout is part of the firm’s planned upgrade of lines to so-called ADSL2+ technology.

The firm said the rollout would start with 40% of the UK this summer and reach 55% of customers by March 2010.

Existing customers will have to sign a new 12-month contract to get the boost, while throttling of video streams in peak hours for some customers remains.

Earlier this week BT was criticised when it was revealed it cut the speed of customers on its cheapest broadband package to below 1Mbps in peak hours when using services like the iPlayer and YouTube.

That so-called traffic management will remain in place with the new speeds.

Download caps for the cheapest two packages, of 10 gigabytes and 20 gigabytes, will also continue, the firm said.

In a statement, Gavin Patterson, chief executive officer, BT Retail, said: “Unlike other providers, BT is upgrading customers to 20Mb/s for free. High-speed broadband provides a faster and more reliable service that will transform the way we live, work, learn and play.”

BT said it was starting trials of its fibre optic 40Mbps service in Whitchurch, South Wales and Muswell Hill, London this summer, with the aim of offering these speeds to 40% of the country in the future.

The speed boost to 20Mbps is less than the firm’s originally stated aims of offering up to 24Mbps.

On its website, BT says in tests “we’ve found that only a tiny number of customers can actually get 24Mb”.

Whether you are a novice or an intermediate user in the world of Photoshop, everyone can use tutorials. Even if a person is comfortable with the software, tutorials are a great way of introducing oneself to new styles and concepts and pretty much be amazed by what you can create with Photoshop.

If you’re looking for Photoshop tutorials, Vunky Search is the place to go to. This site labels itself as the ‘Fast and Furious Photoshop Tutorial Browser’ or in other words, a Photoshop search engine. Both in looks and function, Vunky Search resembles one of the many multi-torrent search engines out there.

When you look at the homepage, you notice the links to popular searches. Below that are some of the featured tutorials for the day. If you’re searching for something specific, type in a search term. If you’re browsing around, just ‘randomize’ or click on a link that interests you. The selected tutorial opens in its original site with no hassles.

Vunky Search currently indexes 88 tutorials but I expect this number to increase over time. Some of the tutorials are simply superb. One more thing I’d like to see is tutorials for more software like Paint and the GIMP. After all, not everyone uses Photoshop.

What do you think of Vunky Search? How do you think the site can be improved? What’s your favorite image tutorials site? Let me know in the comments.

Click here to get a free trial of Photoshop

 
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday its new Windows 7 operating system will be generally available on October 22, well ahead of its original schedule and in time for the holiday shopping season.

The new operating system, which will replace the unpopular Vista, was originally planned for roll-out at the beginning of next year, but Microsoft confirmed last month that it would hit the market in time for the year’s busiest buying period.

The arrival of the new system is a big event for the computing world, as more than 90 percent of the world’s PC’s run on Windows, and strategically important for Microsoft, which gets more than half of its profit from its operating system unit.

The latest release is crucial to win back public confidence after the disappointing launch of Vista in 2007. Vista was incompatible with some low-power machines and perceived by many to be too complicated.

The world’s largest software company also faces new threats to its dominance in operating systems, especially in the fast-growing “netbook” market for small, portable PCs ideal for surfing the Internet and sending e-mail.

Earlier on Tuesday, netbook pioneer Acer Inc said it plans to sell small PCs that run on Google Inc’s new Android operating system, making it the first manufacturer to do so.

Microsoft said it will send Windows 7 code to PC makers to load onto new machines — known in the industry as “release to manufacturing” — around the end of July.

By October 22, people will be able to buy new computers with Windows 7 installed, or pick up the software off the shelf to install on their old computers.

Microsoft confirmed that it will run a program whereby people who buy PCs with certain versions of Vista before October 22 can get a free upgrade to Windows 7, but it has not yet released details.

click here to download
Internet Explorer 8 has shipped in its final version and is ready to take on its rivals. This latest version of Microsoft’s browser leapfrogs its closest competition, Firefox 3, for basic browsing and productivity features — it has better tab handling, a niftier search bar, a more useful address bar, and new tools that deliver information directly from other Web pages and services. IE8 has also been tweaked for security and includes a so-called “porn mode,” new anti-malware protection, and better ways to protect your privacy.

This final version differs little from last January’s RC1 release, aside from some speed improvements and bug fixes. What follows is a comprehensive review of all the ways that IE8 differs from IE7. If you’ve abandoned Microsoft’s browser for a rival, you may — or may not — want to return.

Improved tabs and address bar
For basic browsing, the biggest improvement in IE is its tab handling, which is exemplary. It’s the kind of feature you may not notice much at first, but it’s one that goes a long way toward making your browsing life far easier.

If you commonly use multiple tabs, you’ll particularly welcome the way IE handles them. When you open a new tab from an existing page, the new one opens directly to the right of the originating one, and both tabs are given the same color. That way, all related tabs are automatically grouped and color-coded. If you open a new tab from a page that is already part of a group, it will open at the far right of the group, rather than just to the right of the originating tab. It will also be color-coded.

This subtle change in tab behavior may have a major effect on your productivity. For example, if you write a blog and need to preview it before posting, the preview page typically opens in a new tab. Previously, and with other browsers, the tab opened all the way on the right — often several tabs away from the originating tab — and switching between the two was often confusing. With color-coding and grouping, it’s far easier to switch between related tabs.

It’s easy to move a tab between groups — just drag it, and it becomes part of the new group, taking on its color. Right-click on any tab to control its entire group — that includes closing the group, closing all tabs except for those in the group, and ungrouping the chosen tab from the group. You can also perform actions on any individual tab from the right-click menu. It would have been nice to be able to reopen an entire tab group, but that feature isn’t here.

Also welcome is the new (for IE) ability to reopen tabs. To reopen the last tab you’ve closed, you press Ctrl-Shift-T. To see a list of recently closed tabs and choose which to open, you right-click any tab, select Recently Closed Tabs, and pick the one you want to open.
 
In IE8, you can perform actions on an entire group or individual tabs, such as closing a group or reopening closed tabs. New tabs open showing multiple links (allowing you to open pages you’ve recently closed), an InPrivate Browsing session (more commonly called “porn mode”) and an “Accelerator” that lets you grab content from a Web page (more on this later). You can also perform certain tasks, such as sending e-mail with a Web-based service, or do a search.
 
Opening a new tab brings you a page that lets you reopen closed tabs, browse in InPrivate mode, or use the “Accelerator.” Each tab is isolated from the others, so if one tab crashes, the entire browser doesn’t go down. You can then restore the crashed tab, and when you do, it reloads with the information that had been in it when it crashed, such as a partially written e-mail. And if you were watching a video, the video will start playing at the point the tab crashed, not at the beginning of the video.

click here to download.

Skyfire mobile browser gets full release
Browser promises full web experience on Windows Mobile and Symbian smartphones
Skyfire has released the full version of its mobile browser that brings a PC-like web experience to smartphone users.

Available now as a free download, Skyfire displays web pages as they would appear on a PC, and allows users to zoom in to read text in a similar fashion to the Safari browser on Apple’s iPhone.

AdvertisementThe browser also supports active content such as Flash animations, Java, Silverlight and Ajax, enabling users to view videos such as the content found on YouTube.

Skyfire 1.0 currently runs on handsets with Windows Mobile 5 and 6, and Symbian phones with Nokia’s S60 platform. A BlackBerry version is planned for later this year, the company said.

The release version has been overhauled to improve performance following user feedback from the beta versions, according to Skyfire business development vice president Raj Singh.

“The top two user complaints were that it took a long time to start up and it was slow when zooming in and scrolling, so we attacked those issues,” he said.

Zooming is now “instant”, according to Singh, and scrolling around a web page is much faster and smoother.

Skyfire uses a proxy server to render web pages and deliver them to the browser, offloading much of the processing work from the phone’s CPU.

Other enhancements include an on-screen volume control during video playback, and expanded support for social networking sites on the startup page. In the previous beta, Skyfire updated this into a customisable portal linking users to RSS feeds including those from Facebook and Twitter.

Skyfire claimed that the browser’s support for a full web experience is generating lots of interest from partners, such as mobile networks looking to preinstall the browser on handsets they sell to customers.

The firm also has a number of web site partners that “appreciate Skyfire because it enables their site to work properly on a phone”, said Singh.

Skyfire is also the only mobile browser that works with Google’s Street View, according to Singh. “The litmus test is whether a mobile browser can render Google Maps. It is quite a complex piece of Java code,” he said.

Skyfire is already looking to improve the browser in the future. The company intends to add more social networking features, such as enabling users to upload photos and see their buddies online, and is working on a full-screen playback mode for video

Microsoft and Asus have launched a marketing campaign to encourage netbook users to use Windows rather than Linux.

The campaign has kicked off with a web page entitled “It’s better with Windows” showing adverts for Windows and suggesting it is a better choice for use with Asus’ range of netbooks.

Advertisement
 Asus confirmed to vnunet.com that the campaign was legitimate, saying: “As a hardware vendor we have to provide both operating systems for our consumers.”

However, some will see the initiative as an attempt by Microsoft to protect its share of the growing netbook market.

Microsoft is also facing an increasing challenge from a traditional ally. Intel’s Moblin operating system for netbooks is developed around Linux, and the company recently released its beta of the latest version.