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Free Web Virus-Security Scanner

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:11:47 +0000

The more time I spend online, the more I feel like leaving computers behind and doing something completely different, something that would only require me, myself, and I, without having to use any tools that change with each week. Does this sound like cowardice? I think not, since I can’t remember the last time I had virus-related problems, it’s only the fact that the Internet seems to become less friendly with each day, and the information I can find online gets less relevant with each spammy site that arrives on the Web and doesn’t get blown out of it by Google…

… but since I also love a lot of things related to this industry, especially helping people by writing useful stuff, I think I’ll stick around for a while. Since I don’t think I’ll ever find a cure for the spam on the Internet (I am thinking about Google-tolerated spam here, if you know what I mean), today I’ll tell you a few words about a free Web virus/security scanner called URLVoid.

What about it? The workflow is really easy – you load URLVoid into your browser, enter the address of a site you want to visit, and then take a look at the information that comes out. URLVoid uses 10 external online scanners to check how secure a certain site is, including Web Security Guard, McAfee SiteAdvisor, Google Diagnostic or Norton SafeWeb.

My final thoughts about this resource? As long as you don’t see at least 5-6 threats detected, don’t get alarmed by that “DANGEROUS” status red text… after all, you’re also defended by your firewall and antivirus software, right? Stay safe, with or without URLVoid!

KB971033 – Evil Or Divine

Codrut Nistor — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:16:58 +0000

I may be away from home, but Microsoft never sleeps, and since I bumped into some new Windows 7 updates after powering up my laptop, I decided to investigate… and the results may not be encouraging for those who are used to update their operating system blindfolded. Why? Oh, well, even if you’re not using a pirated Windows 7, you should be careful with one of the latest updates labeled as “important” by the Redmond giant, namely KB971033.

If you avoid reading update descriptions, you should read this: “This update for Windows Activation Technologies helps detect validation errors and activation exploits. This update also detects any tampering attempts made to important Windows 7 system files. Be aware that some counterfeit copies of Windows include malware.

When this update is installed, it performs a validation process for the copy of Windows that is running on your computer. However, this validation process does not affect the functionality of Windows. The update process exits silently if it detects no validation errors, activation exploits, or tampered files.”

While I have nothing against the validation process itself, I am thinking about users who patched their Windows 7 to use custom interface themes. Obviously, this update will try to restore those “tampered files,” considering that the operating system was hacked. This one doesn’t sound well at all, so I think I’ll pass. After all, I know that my Windows 7 is genuine, since I didn’t pay 5 bucks for it, and as long as you have no doubts about the authenticity of your OS, I strongly advise you to avoid the KB971033 update. Sure, it won’t hurt systems using genuine Windows 7 without any special patch like the one I mentioned above, but it’s not really needed, either!

If you have any thoughts regarding this update, please go ahead and drop your comments below. Some people are even afraid of being watched by Microsoft and others with the help of this update… and I am sure there are also other stories I didn’t hear yet, so don’t be shy and drop those comments right here, will you?

Zemana AntiLogger – 3 Years License For Free!

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:29:51 +0000

In the last weeks, I constantly felt like someone’s watching me. Something may be watching me, you, or anybody else. Who’s behind it, that’s not important, but keyloggers are a really dangerous category of malware, so when I bumped into Zemana AntiLogger and the awesome deal I’ll tell you about, I couldn’t just stay aside, so I downloaded the program from here and…

1. Visited this promo URL, disregarding the fact that I am not quite familiar with German language. Thanks to Rammstein, I know quite a few words, but not enough to handle the email I’ll get after going beyond step 2…

… which requires entry of name/surname and email on the page I just mentioned (don’t worry about the first field, it’s about your gender – “Herr” stands for “Male” and “Frau” for “Female”).

3. Now I just got the email, so I have to click the link starting with “http://www.whiteletter.de/mailresponder/”

4. Once you click that link, wait for the email containing the product code. In the meantime, feel free to install the program and restart the computer as asked.

5. After loading your Windows version once again, check the email and enter your code. If it doesn’t work… tought luck!

To close this with some additional info, you should know that Zemana AntiLogger’s 3 years subscription that you can get for free is worth $102, and this program works perfectly with Windows 7, Vista, or XP/2003. Get it, play with it, and if the serial doesn’t work… don’t blame us! At least you found out about a pretty solid tool to help you fight keyloggers and protect your privacy, right?

Get Steganos Safe Professional 2008 For Free!

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:43:07 +0000

Wouldn’t it be nice to get used cars for free? Even better, new ones from some older generation, also for free? Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening anytime soon, but this is exactly what happens in the software world lately – commercial products offered for free, with the only twist being the fact that you don’t get exactly the latest version. Doesn’t sound that bad, after all, don’t you think? Today’s pick – Steganos Safe Professional 2008!

The basic idea is that Steganos Safe Professional 2008, a piece of code worth almost 50 bucks, has been made freely available to readers of Computer Shopper. So far, so good, but if you go to this page, enter your email address, and then get the setup package from here, you may get lucky…

… because I did not! I received the serial number via email, installed the application, everything was great, only that I get an error when trying to activate the license. What I suspect is the availability of this giveaway only to US/Canada users, and since my IP is from Europe… you can figure it all out!

Just a few final words about this piece of code – works with Microsoft Windows Vista / 2003 / XP, offering excellent data encryption capabilities, also including a data shredder and a portable safe utility. Sweet!

Silently Autosave Passwords In Firefox

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:05:11 +0000

The problem with a lot of Internet users is lack of any idea about password management, so if they get their computer replaced, they go as far as creating new Yahoo! or Gmail accounts simply because the previous credentials were saved into their browser, and they simply forgot any kind of info related to them. While this time won’t talk about password management itself, this is also a pretty interesting password-related subject: silently autosaving passwords in Firefox.

Obviously, allowing Firefox to save your user names and passwords won’t make any other noise apart from the mouse click needed, and this is exactly what I had in mind – saving passwords without asking a confirmation! Sure, the evil minds reading this could also use this Firefox hack to steal other people’s accounts… without actually stealing their passwords!

As a final addition to the last phrase above, I think it could be possible to retrieve those passwords already save with the help of some additional program, but I will be honest – I simply don’t care about that, and my advice is to stay away from other people’s account, all right? Good!

Now, let’s get to the hack itself, shall we? First of all, I have to thank Raymond for writing about this subject and giving me the idea of going after it, too. All the credits for hacking the .JS file I’ll tell you about next also go to him. Great job, Raymond!

If you really want to get rid of that bar having the Remember, Never for This Site and Not Now buttons, here’s what you should do after closing Firefox…

1. Open a text editor (my favorite is Notepad++, as you can see in the image above)

2. Open the file nsLoginManagerPrompter.js, located in the components folder of your Firefox main directory (for example, default location should be C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\)

3. Go to the _showSaveLoginNotification function and remove everything between lines 642 to 711, or until you find the _removeLoginNotifications funtion, if you’re going to use the Search feature instead of checking the line number…

4. Replace that section with these two lines of code:
var pwmgr = this._pwmgr;
pwmgr.addLogin(aLogin);

5. Save the file and open Firefox.

That’s all, folks! Now, all your user names and passwords will be saved automatically, so be sure to use this feature carefully… and avoid using Firefox on public computers, since someone else could have done this and turned this notorious browser into some kind of keylogger!

IObit Security 360 Pro Giveaway

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:00:56 +0000

When it comes to food giveaways, I usually avoid them, and the reason should be obvious – most products who are being offered as free samples in supermarkets are junk. Anyway, I have my own source of bio milk products, I don’t usually eat processed meat, and when it comes to sweets… I’d rather make my own cookies instead of buying some additives-filled colored piece of crap (anyway, I love Mars and Snickers, can’t deny that). Fortunately, software giveaways don’t work like that, and today I just found out about a notorious malware and spyware removal utility that will be offered for free until the 11th of November…

… and the name of that tool is IObit Security 360, the Pro version. Why the Pro? The answer is pretty simple – the “regular” version was free anyway, and you probably used it, or at least heard of it – the name used for it is IObit Security 360 Free. Good, so what’s the catch, then?

The difference between the free version and the paid one is that IObit Security 360 Pro offers automatic scans and automatic updates, while the free one needs to be updated manually, and scans also have to be initiated by the user every time. Anyway, the good stuff remains the same – hijack and security holes scan, real-time malware protection, unlock & delete locked files, a Privacy Sweeper tool, passive defense features, and all on top of a high performance engine simply known as “Dual-Core” with heuristic malware detection capabilities.

If the above is not enough, I should also add that IObit’s official page is full of goodies, including various special offers and a contest that could bring you a lot of cash or at least some free licenses…

The setup package has only 11 MB in size, installing the program, updating it and scanning my system worked blazing fast… not to mention that you’ll get your registration key by email and going from Free to Pro is also a matter of seconds. These being said, I hope you’ll also enjoy this software giveaway ($29.95 for $0.0, that’s a pretty good deal!), and don’t forget to tell you friends, too – IObit Security 360 Pro is fully compatible with Windows 7, and you have to act before the 11th of November. Good luck and stay on the safe side!

Best PC Security Solution?!?

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:30:47 +0000

I said this before, I say it again now, and I will keep saying it until everyone around me will get the idea and act accordingly the best PC security solution you will ever get is knowledge! A user who really knows what’s happening inside the PC, and at least the basics on viruses and other threats is much better than one using some Internet Security Suite software package and having no idea about those things.

Today, I just bumped into a very interesting alternative for those who would rather run any piece of software in a protected environment instead of waste time with various online scanners or searching for information about some obscure program obtained via their favorite forum. Its name? Sandboxie!

With this little proggie (only 568kb to download, about 1.9MB a few hours after being installed), you will be able to run your programs in a secured space (“sandbox”), so they won’t be able to make any permanent changes to other programs or data in your computer. What’s the big catch with this? Think!

Sandboxie allows you to browse the Internet without having to install any special malware protection tool, since any wicked piece of code downloaded will be trapped in the sandbox, while all browsing history and cookies will also remain there, allowing you to actually browse the Web without having your personal stuff exposed to other users of your OS (sure, as long as they don’t find out about Sandboxie…).

At last, there’s something even better than all the above – you can install software into a sandbox, test it, then remove it without having to worry about your Windows getting slower because all the remains that are usually left by some programs!

Since version 3.38 of Sandboxie was released in late May, I thing we’ll get to hear more about this excellent program in the future. Currently, there are plenty of features available, but I can only dream about password-protected sandboxes, the ability to create a 64 bit sandbox (emulated, of course) on 32 bit systems, and… sure, a more friendly way to change settings, since I am sure not everyone is crazy about getting through documentation and the editing some INI file to get things properly setup…

If you want to remove the nag screen that appears after 30 days of use, Sandboxie is available to be purchased for about 22EUR, also adding some new features, like Forced Programs, Forced Folders, as well as the ability to run programs simultaneously in multiple sandboxes.

Pheew… there’s quite a lot to say about Sandboxie, but I think that best thing to do would be to download it and give it a try, and never forget the headline of this interesting piece of code: “Trust No Program!”

Oh, yeah, one more thing – Sandboxie should work properly with Windows XP and Vista… at least! Considering this, if you manage to run it on any other Windows version, please be so kind and drop a comment below sharing your experience with us, will you? Thanks in advance!