It's been a while since we started blogging again, so this is our way of making up for it. Let's talk security. In our day and age, security is becoming an increasingly important aspect of our digital lives; that is our computers need to be virus-free. But with all those antivirus software floating around the internet claiming that they are #1, its really hard to know which ones are legimiately effective and which ones that are just over-hyper. Well, luckily, you have a team of geeks (we are also known as XetoWare Corporation), who will look in to all the vendors and give you a foolproof way of staying protected without any hefty subscription fees.
The first thing that comes to mind when pondering about computer security is an antivirus. Cutting to the chase, we believe that the best free antivirus software is AVG (short for Anti-virus Guard). AVG is quick yet extremely effective at detecting possible threats on your computer. If you are short on money and want free security, we recommend you download and install AVG. However, if you don't mind spending some extra bucks, get Kaspersky Internet Security. Kaspersky may not be the fastest antivirus, but it is darn-well the best and most comprehensive one out there. For one thing, Kaspersky takes protection to another level, not only scanning your files, but also your open programs, your internet transmission and the memory of your running programs: Kaspersky Internet Security even detected a virus inside our Virtual PC! To top that off Kaspersky also supports unpacking of over 100 binary packers, which hackers use to disguise their viruses as legitimate files and its database contains millions of signatures. The short:
With either of those two running you should be protected from 99% of threats that may harm your computer, but if you really want to make your computer impenetrable then there is one last thing you need to install: an antimalware program. Antivirus programs are similar to the first line of defense in a body. They filter out most harmful threats, but are useless when viruses bypass them. To seal out almost all threats, you will need an antimalware software and we at XetoWare recommend Malwarebytes Antimalware. Why? Because Malwarebytes is one of the best and quickest to update Antimalware programs out there. Its zero-day detection engine can detect unknown viruses and their quick database updates makes sure any new threats are swiftly analyzed and removed. On top of that, Malwarebytes Antimalware Pro has a malicious website blocker module which blocks harmful websites and thus lowers your rate of being infected significantly. So, there you have it: a newbies guide to staying safe both online and offline. If you want to, you can read our more comprehensive article on how to avoid getting hacked. So recently, we were trying to do a bit of housekeeping on our software, resigning the code with a valid certificate, fixing grammatical errors; just stuff like that. So when we scanned our Fast Shutdown installer against 60 antivirus engines, we were shocked: one of them detected Fast Shutdown as a 'high risk' threat. Fast Shutdown doesn't do anything malicious. We reviewed the code and analysed all its actions: we didn't find anything that even came close to malicious. So why did AVG detect it as a 'high risk'? After an hour of looking over the code, we decided to use a guess, check and elimination strategy. We removed certain aspects of the program and scanned it against AVG again. After a fair amount of trial and error, we found it: the problem was the icon. How can an icon be malicious? It's just a picture after all. Confused, we consulted AVG, and soon enough they gave us a solution that made enough sense. AVG sometimes uses specific signature points in a file to determine if its a virus: in this case, it was the icon. For example, a previous virus happened to use the same icon as Fast Shutdown, so when AVG scanned our software, they immediately flagged it as a virus. Good strategy AVG, but it could be much better. For example, what virus is digitally signed like Fast Shutdown is? If you ask us, determining if a file is a virus based on its icon is a bit absurd. What if a photo you took on your vacation was detected as a 'high risk' threat? Hello techies, In the world of software development, there will always be a line between legitimate and untrusted software and that line is called code signing. Code signing dates back to the 1990s when Microsoft first released a object orientated version of Windows. Certified authorities such as COMODO, Microsoft and Thawte generate code signing certificates to individuals and organisiation. The problem is that these companies require indivuduals and organisations to verify their identity through a complex and tedious process requiring the presentation of phone bills, driver licenses, phone call verifications, proof of address and the list goes on. Furthermore, indivudual developers are especially disadvantaged as they cannot choose a custom alias to represent their software: the certificate must display their name. This can lead to privacy concerns, especially when your real name is displayed to all users of your applications. VerifyMyApp is XetoWare's newest innovation, aiming to help individual developers and small businesses increase credibility to their software and apps by offering a cost-effective company code signing to their applications. VerifyMyApp skips identity verification and instead relies on application verification: scanning it against 60 antivirus and antispyware engines as well as testing it ourselves on real computers to evaulate the files and settings that your app creates, modifies or removes. This service will filter out untrustful software, increase the credibility of legitimate applications and present them as programs to other businesses, end users, software distribution websites and antivirus software. For more information, visit VerifyMyApp's official website. Hi, its been a while since we posted on our blog, but don't be too mad: we have a surprise. uZip, short for unzip, is released and can be downloaded at this page. It's a tiny but powerful and extremely convenient ZIP, RAR, 7z, ISO, GZ, etc extraction tool. Forget the old days of opening WinZip or WinRar and manually finding, clicking or selecting archives you want to extract: uZip does all that and does it it in one nifty click. Simply download and install uZip and you're good to go. Extracting files is made easy by uZip's integration in to the right-click menu. Simply right-click on a ZIP, RAR, TAR or 7z file, click 'Extract with uZip' and uZip will do the rest! Find out more about uZip at it's official page.
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