Lazy Blogger’s Post: Windows Optimizing for Lazy People…

…or even just folks with better things to do than spend time running one standalone program after another.

[Nothing profound or particularly newsworthy. This is just another timesaving post from my slush drafts pile. I’ve been using/informally testing the iObit product referenced below for a couple of months and find it very useful myself, now.]

Here’s the deal: like it, love it, indifferent or hate it, Windows is here to stay for a while on most folks’ desktops. And it’s the target of choice, for many reasons, for malware of all kinds. In addition, Windows installations “cruft up” something fierce after only a few days or at most weeks of use and become, if not unusable, at the very least less than optimally-configured as a result.

What to do? Well, since converting to Linux is still out for most ordinary users (in spite of the “Aunt Tilly” friendliness of some recent distros) and switching to Mac OS X(.xx) is just trading for a different straightjacket–one that is apparently safer in part because it’s a more restrictive straightjacket–then maintaining a relatively cruft free and malware free Windows install is pretty much necessary. Until recently, that’s meant using several different products to achieve that goal, something that can be daunting or simply too time-consuming for folks who just want to get their web cruising, media management and document creation done.

Sure, Symantec and others have touted their integrated security and computer management/cleanup products for some time, but none of the “big boys'” products have appealed to me to the degree that I’d recommend them to clients. In particular, all of them, including the new Microsoft Onecare, have had serious flaws in execution or feature set that have made them “no deals” for me, and what I cannot justify for my own use, I cannot recommend to others.

Recently, however, I’ve found a product that, while lacking a software firewall and anti-virus, has most of the other features I have recommended several standalone products to fulfill, and fulfills those features quite well. That’s at least a step in the right direction for lazy–or just busy–folks who just cannot make the time to run several different computer management/anti-malware apps every day.

That’s a pic of Advanced Windows Care2 (PE) in action. (Yeh, I’ve blanked out any even vague identifiers that might peg which machine I was running it on. :-)) I’ve run it and several different apps that perform the same functions in comparison runs and had surprisingly similar results. With Adaware SE Personal and Spybot Search and Destroy scanning for spyware and startup issues, Fixit Utilities 5 scanning for registry errors and cruft files, for example, I found pretty much the same issues that Advanced Windows Onecare2 (PE) found with a one click, one pass effort. The general Windows and network optimizing suggestions were icing on the cake.

For disk defragging, personal firewall and anti-virus protection I’ll still have to continue to recommend (mostly) separate applications, but for those who find running multiple apps to scan for registry errors, spyware and other security issues to be a pain, I feel conmfortable recommending IObit’s Advanced Windows Onecare, now. The “Personal Edition” is even free for home/private use.

[Note: iObit now offers a pretty decent lil defragger, too. And what the heck, if you do download it, tell ’em I sent you. If asked (and I don’t know that iObit will ask) use mnmus@thirdworldcounty.us as a reference, if you will. Yeh, iObit might give me a license to the “Pro” version. “Might” being the operative word. If they don’t, I’d still recommend it for “lazy” or too-busy Windows users.]

Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, Adam’s Blog, The World According to Carl, basil’s blog, Blue Star Chronicles, The Right Nation, Pirate’s Cove, Cao’s Blog, Phastidio.net, The Bullwinkle Blog, Jo’s Cafe, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Disk defragging, personal firewall and anti-virus?

O&O Defrag. About $50, but worth it. WELL worth it. Best defragger I have found. If you want a decent freebie defragger to supplant the crappy built-in Windoze defragger, the iObit defragger’s pretty darned good (and not owned by Scientologists, like another otherwise decent defragger that’s available in a free version). The iObit defragger even let’s you schedule automatic defrags. Pretty nice for a freebie.

A FREE Personal firewall? I now recommend Comodo Personal Firewall. It works better than most that cost $40 or so. Much better, IMO, and it’s still under development, unlike my former preference, Sygate Personal firewall (killed by Symantec), and doesn’t bug you all the time about “upgrading” to a pay version like the freebie version of Zonealarm now does. Comodo has some neat features. be sure to check out the “register apps” feature–saves a lot of popups asking permission for apps to access the internet by scanning your computer for and then “registering” already known apps.

Anti-virus? The new version of AVG Free is excellent (the previous version became unsupported last month, so users who’ve not upgraded to the new version MUST download and install the new version to maintain protection). While you’re there, if you want to have a backup anti-spyware (beyond Advanced Window Care, Spybot Search and Destroy and Adaware–*heh*) check out AVG’s new antispyware product. Grisoft purchased the very good Ewido anti-spyware product, did its own little magic with the product and is now distributing it in both free and paid versions.

Another time, I’ll get into defragging the most problematic file Windows has: the pagefile. You may be surprised how very easy it is to do…