PCPitstop Overdrive - Free PC Tune-up

PCPitstop have changed the format of the Free PC Tune-up. It is now even easier to use and is a great one-stop site to visit and test your machines health, configuration and performance.

The tests only take a few minutes and are 100% safe. You will be prompted to install the PC Pitstop Utility which you must accept to carry out the tests after which you will again have the opportunity to create an account which can be useful for comparison when used again.

Full details Click Here

Safer Surfing in 'Virtual' Environment

With normal surfing information is loaded from your hard drive and then through your browser where information is then written back to your computer, if it’s a malicious site then you will also have malware written to your drive.

What if you could use a ‘virtual area’ in which you can run your browser, email reader, instant messengers and programs in complete safety. The information is loaded from your hard drive into the 'virtual' environment, from there the read/write operations are carried out within the 'virtual' environment and never back to your computer.

Well..........you can........Full details Click Here

Web of Trust Is Your Community

Now there is a new tool for all users which is community driven. Web of Trust rates sites on standards of trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety. Once installed as a small BHO, it will place a safety rating on search engine searches and also checks links in emails. This takes it further up the ladder aimed at improving online safety for all users.

Click Here For Full Details

MRU-Blaster Guide

MRU-Blaster is a program that does one large task - detect and clean the MRU (most recently used) lists on your computer.

This program is Freeware, although donations are accepted

goto: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/mrublaster.html

Download this program, I suggest that you place a NewFolder on your Desktop and rename it 'Downloads'. You can then download the various programs that I pass on to you in one central location, and always make back up copies.

The additional plug-ins are described below and allow you to clean out your Temporary Internet Files and Cookies. MRU-Blaster enhances the protection of your privacy!

MRU-Blaster setup: Take care setting this up.

When installed go to Settings and tick boxes1,3,4,6,7,8,9, & 10 on the left hand side.
Tick boxes 3,5,6, 7 & 8 on right hand side, then Save Setting.

Click on 'Go To Plugins' then click cookie blaster. Do not save any cookies as they are used to monitor your internet activity.

Click on 'IE Temporary Internet File Cleaner', tick EnableSecure Deletion of Files and click radio button 'Specify a custom number of passes and set to 7. Then save Settings & Run Now.
Using this program frequently only takes a few seconds and removes traces of the Most Recently Used (MRU) lists on your PC. These lists contain details of the name/locations of the files you have accessed. Traces of these are left scattered through your registry and unless removed are there for all to find.

One very important thing - do NOT save your passwords on your hard drive and do NOT tick the boxes asking to remember your login details.
Open any text document and type in the URL, Username and Password for each site that you have a password for, save this to either a floppy disc, flash drive, or other removable media, Do NOT save this text file on your hard drive।

I will cover another program for using secure passwords in the near future.

goto: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/mrublaster.html

Safe surfing everyone
cotojo

Protect Your PC and Privacy

You may think that you are reasonably safe as you surf the net, but windows has many gaping flaws that do not protect your privacy, and it it far too easy for a hacker to gain access to your privacy and others to harness your ISP etc. There are some simple steps outlined below which will allow you to surf much safer, as well as guiding you through various tweaks to help you.

Set a Restore Point or back-up your PC FIRST!

I have been using AVG free Anti-Virus for many years and install it as first choice on other peoples machines.
Get yours here: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-virus-free/lng/us/tpl/v5

Ad-Aware Personal remains the most popular anti-spyware product for computer users around the world, with nearly one million downloads every week.
http://www.lavasoft.de/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php

Also worth using is ZoneAlarm free firewall available from http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

SpywareGuard, SpywareBlaster and MRU-Blaster available for free from http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/products.html

The only thing that I would actually PAY for is XoftSpy, and it is only a one off payment with lifetime updates, and a free scan so you can test it and see what it finds.
It's availabe at http://www.linkbrander.com/go/34613

Also check your PC for free at http://pcpitstop.com/

Without your knowledge or explicit permission, the Windows networking technology which connects your computer to the Internet may be offering some or all of your computer's data to the entire world at this very moment! You can check your open Ports, File Sharing etc for Free at http://www.grc.com/default.htm
Simply scroll down the page to *Hot Spots* and click on ShieldsUp.

Finally for now, I would also recommend the use of CCleaner (formerly Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. The best part is that it's fast! (normally taking less than a second to run) and Free. Cleans the following:
Internet Explorer Cache, History, Cookies, Index.dat.
Recycle Bin, Temporary files and Log files.
Recently opened URLs and files.
Third-party application temp files and recent file lists (MRUs). Including: Firefox, Opera, Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Office XP, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and more...
Advanced Registry scanner and cleaner to remove unused and old entries. Including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more... Backup for registry clean.
Windows Startup tool.
http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Hope that some of this is of some use to you.
Have a good day all
http://www.linkbrander.com/go/35000
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http://www.linkbrander.com/go/33863

Any problems then feel free to leave a comment and I will get back to you asap.