It’s A Mean Old World Out There!

For anyone not already certain, the times are getting harder and harder for your computer. The nastiness that can be picked up is amazing, and it doesn’t take long for it to happen, with the internet to propagate it.

The problem is that it keeps getting harder and harder to keep your personal computer free of bad stuff; it’s no wonder that people are buying more Apple computers than ever before.

Once upon a time, if you kept Windows patched, and ran a good antivirus program, along with a good firewall, you were pretty much set. That is not true any more, as browsers are insecure, and any program that comes in contact with the browser can be a problem.

Look at the problems that are being had with Adobe Reader – 4 times this year it has been problematic for systems otherwise problem free. Adobe, like Microsoft, does not seem to learn from its mistakes. Also there have been flaws found in QuickTime for Windows, though they aren’t exploited as much - mostly because it’s easy to live without QuickTime, but PDF has become a de facto standard.

It wouldn’t be so bad, as there are other programs that will allow reading of PDF files, but it seems that Adobe is always changing things, and adding features, so, just as with Microsoft Word, people want to use the real PDF ’standard’ so that everything is displayed as it was intended.

While there are ways to keep on top of keeping all your programs up-to-date, most of them require a lot more effort and vigilance than most people are willing to exert. I find that the Personal Software Inspector does a very good job for me, letting me know when I need to update any of the 200 or so programs that are on my main machine.

The PSI is free for home use, and truthfully, I can’t remember how long I’ve been using it – somewhere over two years. The PSI has been updated twice in that time, and now does much more than simply alerting you to problems. It will help you download the updates, and, for some things that are less than secure, yet there is no way to patch, you can turn off the alert, yet keep the item as a ‘notify when update becomes available’.

I should also mention that the PSI is very unobtrusive, and does not generate the amount of annoyance that the Vista UAC does. This is not to imply that they accomplish the same job, they do not.

Secunia has made a very good product, one that I would gladly pay for. There is a new version in beta, but it may or may not be released to the personal user base. So waiting is not advised. Go to the site, following the hyperlink, and download the program. It will do a first assessment fairly quickly, and advise of any updates needed. After you have applied the updates, you can rest a lot more easily than before, knowing you’re getting lots of help from your silent assistant.

– Another article about security from Download Squad

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