Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"The solution to all this is to not be caught with your virtual pants around your ankles, and lucky for us, antivirus vendors have stepped up their game with increasingly robust all-in-one security suites. In fact, unlike other technology categories, the field of AV continues to expand rather than consolidate, with an overwhelming number of apps promising protection and unique features."

Regardless of what software package you choose, I honestly think that anti-virus software, and in general, Internet security software, is a necessary evil. I would like to think that I am pretty savvy. I am fairly diligent about updating my software, what websites I visit and keep abreast of the various scams out there. However, I am not arrogant enough to think that I am impervious to all the threats out there. I can only protect against what I do know, and admittedly, that is only so much. So I have a fail safe in running anti-viral software on all my computers. It is no guarantee, but it helps, just in case I come home drunk one night and decide to cruise the darker parts of the web. All that being said, my current favorite is Microsoft Security Essentials. What is yours?

"I just set up a friend's PC. I haven't done that in a while. Wow. Apparently, a computer is now not a computer, it's an opportunity to upsell you. First, the setup insisted (for my own safety) that I sign up for an eternal subscription to Norton. Then it defaulted (opt out) to sending me promotional emails..."

Seth Goodin is a brilliant marketing/PR guy who somehow manages, every single day, to send out an email with meaningful thoughts about his industry. His email today struck a cord that I thought Digital Home Thoughts readers would be interested in - it was about his experience setting up a new PC. He's 100% right; setting up a new PC does feel like a carnival experience, with distractions and conflicting experiences as part of what customers have come to expect. So much of the new computer experience feels whorish; HP is the worst for this, with their co-branded HP/AOL home page, HP/AOL toolbar, eBay links on the desktop, etc. Read more...

"For those not in on the beta or following Microsoft's exciting forays into freeware, the software promises to cover all the security basics and fend off viruses, spyware and other malicious software, and Microsoft even assures us that it'll "run quietly in the background" and only intrude on your life when an action is required."

Microsoft's Security Essentials has only been in beta for three months, but apparently is now ready for public consumption. It is free (for home and non-commercial use), available for most current versions of Windows and is being promptly frowned upon by other PC security vendors like Symantec. It is great to see Microsoft taking a more active approach in protecting Windows based computers, especially with the huge number of compromised computers out there causing untold amounts of harm and skimming everyone's personal information. Reviews have been coming in and so far the objective ones have been fairly positive. Of course, there are a wide variety of free and non-free solutions available, but this just gives people one less reason to not have their PC secured.