Program

Channel8 announced a new program, which will give millions of qualified students the opportunity to download Microsoft professional-level developer and design tools at no charge.

It is our hope that the DreamSpark program will spark your creativity and help you harness software’s transformative magic to turn your good ideas into reality, by equipping you with the tools you need to succeed and excel during your academic experience and skills you will need after graduation.

The program starts off in 11 countries/regions: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium. More countries will be added throughout the year.

Get started here.

Bill Gates talks about Free Software, Students, and Technology

{ 2 comments }

Adobe Reader 8.1.2 Release Notes

The absence of a bulletin with details and severity ratings has raised eyebrows in the security research community.

The patch, included in Adobe Reader 8.1.2, plugs at least one known critical issue that allows rigged PDF files to be used in code execution attacks, says Kostya Kortchinsky, a vulnerability researcher at Immunity.

eWeek

{ 0 comments }

RealPlayer by RealNetworks is a popular alternative to Apple’s QuickTime and Windows Media Player.

StopBadware

We find that RealPlayer 10.5 is badware because it fails to accurately and completely disclose the fact that it installs advertising software on the user’s computer. We additionally find that RealPlayer 11 is badware because it does not disclose the fact that it installs Rhapsody Player Engine software, and fails to remove this software when RealPlayer is uninstalled.

We currently recommend that users do not install the versions of RealPlayer that we tested, unless the user is comfortable with the software behaviors we identify or until the application is updated to be consistent with the recommendations in this report.
This alert represents StopBadware’s findings during our initial testing period. Additional badware behaviors that were not initially detected may exist in the application.

Announcement

http://www.stopbadware.org/pdfs/realplayer_press_release.pdf

Expect to see further developments.

{ 0 comments }

Anti-spyware program by Patrick Kolla and Team Spybot.

Spybot-S&D 1.5 has quite a lot of advantages over version 1.4: improved compatibility, more effective detections and new functions. Between all the positive feedback we received, there were also some things that needed to be improved: the immunization sometimes needed to be applied twice before sticking, many users wanted the file shredder back, and it was impossible to remove entries from the user blacklist in the Internet Explorer plugin. But first of all, we apologize for the long starting time of Spybot-S&D 1.5.1 to all users. This item has been fixed now in this new version 1.5.2.

We are convinced that you will work with the best Spybot ever: Spybot-S&D 1.5.2 has all advantages, but no handicaps over all previous versions!

Throughout the next days our partners and ourselves will provide you with version 1.5.2. This version will also be available through the integrated update within the next days.

Spybot-S&D Home Page

{ 2 comments }

If you have a new Dell running Windows Vista Ultimate, you can help eliminate AIDS in Africa and also get some nifty stuff like (PRODUCT) Red sidebar gadgets, wallpaper and Dreamscene.

LEARN MORE ABOUT (RED) MONEY AT WORK IN AFRICA

Enabling the Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED bits

{ 0 comments }

Update:

Comodo’s CEO Attacks Scot’s Newsletter Product Decision
January 22nd, 2008

Comodo’s president and CEO, Melih Abdulhayoglu, used his forum today as a podium to blast this Scot’s Newsletter Jan. 20th blog post. In that post, I notified readers here of my decision to stop considering one of the two modes that his company’s software firewall product, Comodo 3, offers during installation.

Abdulhayoglu, in his forum post, never directly comes out and admits that Comodo 3 Basic Firewall doesn’t have anti-leak protection. That’s part of the problem! My readers weren’t aware that this was the case because I wasn’t aware until SNB commenters drew my attention to it. I then asked Comodo for verification of that fact — and got it.

At this writing, I am unable to find a document on the Comodo Web site that provides a features/functionality comparison of Comodo 2.4, Comodo 3.0 Basic Firewall, and Comodo 3.0 Advanced. Without that information, Comodo’s users are left to guess.

My concern was that my readers might guess that they had protection with Comodo 3 Basic Firewall that they do not, in fact, have. So I moved to make that point clear. I just wish I had made the point sooner.

My only responsibilities are to the interests of my readers and to being as accurate as I can be. I believe I’ve met both goals.

– Scot

Complete Article: Scot’s Newsletter Blog

Edit: Please see Comodo’s topic for their side of it.

How would you rate Comodo Personal Firewall? and what to improve?

Now, I and Egemen had a chat (phone call) with Scott last week about our firewall. There we explained its capabilities. At no stage did we say CPF has no “outbound leak protection”!!! I am surprised that he just ran that story with that misunderstanding. Very sad indeed! Obviously Scott must have misunderstood some of what we said. Of course CFP v3 in simple firewall mode has “outbound protection” and a pretty good one too! The Leak resistance (eg: protection against malware killing the firewall etc) comes from Defense+ (which is built into v3!).

Also Online Armor forums:
An extraordinary post from the CEO of Comodo: Our Response

{ 4 comments }

Scot’s Newsletter Blog reports:

Do Not Rely on Comodo 3’s ‘Basic Firewall’

Because I have written in the recent past with an initially positive reaction to Comodo 3’s “Basic Firewall” installation option, I am honor-bound to post this quick message.

I have learned directly from Comodo executives that the Basic Firewall installation option of Comodo 3 does not offer any outbound leak protection whatsoever. They may add that protection in a future version of Comodo 3.x. The Basic Firewall option turns off Comodo 3’s Defense+ HIPS module, which provides the leak protection for Comodo 3.

The previous generation of the Comodo 2.4 provided anti-leak protection without the HIPS.

Not only does this mean that Comodo 3 Basic Firewall is no longer a contender in this blog’s firewall evaluation, but if you are relying on this version of Comodo for your firewall protection, Windows XP users should switch to Online Armor FREE version 2.1.0.31 (or newer) and Vista users should uninstall Comodo 3 and reinstall it, choosing the “Advanced” installation option.

Source: Corrine’s Security Garden and Windows Vista Compatible Firewalls

{ 5 comments }

The sales pitch to include a toolbar with WinPatrol was compelling. I’m told that the my reputation wouldn’t be affected and I would be providing my customers with a service by including the free toolbar. All the companies currently installing the toolbar are very happy. He even leaked the news that another well known Anti-Spyware vendor who would be moving to the dark side soon.

Labels: IAC, Lavasoft, Toolbar, WinPatrol, Zwinky

I’m going to have to pass and keep WinPatrol simple and pure.

I applaud you Bill, a true blue honest vendor with a great product.

Bits From Bill: Would you like Toolbar with your Software Order?

{ 0 comments }

This rogue will infect your computer if you install it.

After surfing to a google cached page in Opera and Firefox, the rogue scan started immediately.

How to remove AntiSpyBoss (Removal Instructions)

{ 0 comments }