Security Apps/Suites

Clearing a system of malware and keeping it clear is a surprisingly hard job. It’s a fine balancing act between protecting a system thoroughly yet not bothering the user with details and questions or crippling system performance. This year’s best security programs manage to thread the needle, though as a whole, it seems most vendors with software in this category are trying hard to keep system drag to a minimum.

Winner: Symantec Norton Internet Security 2009
$69.95 (up to three PCs); www.symantec.com

Power users have traditionally had a love-hate relationship with security suites: They offer lots of security utilities within one streamlined interface, but bloat and sloth tended to drag down system performance significantly. For the past two years, Symantec has been on a debloating crusade with its security products, and the 2009 editions are not only significantly faster but also take steps to show you how little drag the programs impose on your system. We think NIS 2009 hits the sweet spot between speed and functionality, and though we can understand if you’ve been burned by Symantec products in the past and are now a little gun-shy, it warrants serious consideration now.

NIS combines antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing, a two-way firewall, parental controls, and antispam as its major features. And if each isn’t the very top-of-the-line, they are all very close to it. Minor features include a secure password locker, a drive-by download blocker, and bot/worm protection. All these features share a common interface and unified configuration panel that’s truly a pleasure to work with, which invites exploration and experimentation.

Scans, updates, and other CPU-intensive activity only occur during idle periods (which you can configure), and a “Silent Mode” forces NIS to shut up, stay idle, and perform default protections for between one and six hours for your gaming sessions. A big CPU meter displays both general system activity as well as how much of that activity you can attribute to NIS 2009 (probably Symantec’s hoping to dispel the myth that NIS is to blame for slow systems). Factor in protection for three PCs for the price, and NIS 2009 is a good value, too.

First Runner-Up: PC Tools Spyware Doctor 6
$29.95 (up to three PCs); www.pctools.com

Every year the antispyware utilities jockey for position, and thanks to the fierce competition, the top tools keep getting better. For 2008, we give Spyware Doctor 6 the nod for its ruthless persecution of hard-to-kill spyware, ease of use, relatively minor impact on system speed while active, and low price (especially when legally installed on multiple PCs). We especially like how its antivirus module (which may be fine; we’ve never rigorously tested it) is entirely optional, saving you $10 if you already have an antivirus program you like.

Although its conventional scanning is excellent, the latest version has BehaviorGuard, which uses the outstanding ThreatFire (www.threatfire.com) behavior-based detection engine, as a no-cost add-in. It manages to stop zero-day malware threats without bulky definition file lookups. Based on our experiences with truly infested systems this year, Spyware Doctor 6 has the best chance of cleaning the mess up properly and giving you a fresh start.

Second Runner-Up: Comodo Firewall Pro 3.5
Free; www.comodo.com

Some programs are great because they manage to condense dozens of complex options and commands into simple checkboxes. Others, like Comodo Firewall Pro, are great because they leave all those options alone and let true power users have the ultimate flexibility. If you need to run various servers, P2P programs, and other remote access software on your PC, but you still want solid firewalling, Comodo is a better choice than bundled-in firewalling modules offered in various security suites. Comodo lets you lock out specific ports and addresses, scan active connections to let you look for patterns, and much, much more. Yet with all this, Comodo still has a clear (if complex) GUI, outstanding protection, and a low, low price of free.

System/Drive Utilities

Once a system is cleaned up, there are still hardware and software problems that can keep a Windows system from running properly. There’s a lot of chaff to separate from the wheat in this category, but these programs haven’t let us down when it comes to system maintenance. Generally, most vendors have taken the opportunity to apply Vista’s Aero theming cues to their own interfaces, which has generally been a vast improvement in usability.

Winner: Avanquest Software Fix-It Utilities 9 Professional
$49.95; www.avanquest.com

There are two ways of thinking when it comes to system/disk utilities: Either get a bunch of individual utilities to each handle very specific problems or go with the “everything and the kitchen sink” approach and use a utility suite that covers everything. There are merits for each approach, but if you’re keen on the latter, then Fix-It Utilities 9 Professional gets the nod for the best overall utility suite. To be fair, Version 8 was actually our choice, but Avanquest released version 9 as we were writing this. So, while we haven’t quite given it the “full CPU treatment,” we like what we see.

FIU 9 is packed with nearly 100 diagnostic tests and utilities, ranging from S.M.A.R.T. drive monitors, Registry cleanup, file undeleters and secure shredders, disk surface testers and defraggers, temporary file cleaners, etc.

New for version 9 is a TCP/IP and browser optimizer, a memory booster utility (although we found its improvements dubious at best), and an improved anti-virus/antispyware engine based on Trend Micro’s antimalware technology. Blessedly, you can disable the AV and AS easily if you already have your own anti-malware setup in place, and we found no conflicts with other security programs.

As before, the key to FIU 9’s success is integration, with the various utilities all sharing a similar look and feel and benefitting from a master “undo and restore” feature. Also welcome is an excellent set of instructions—both for general use and for emergency system restoration—which should ease anyone’s concerns about what the suite is doing.

First Runner-Up: ShadowProtect Desktop 3.3
$79.95; www.storagecraft.com

Fans of disk-image-based backups looking to replace their DOS-rooted copies of Norton Ghost 2003 should look hard at ShadowProtect Desktop 3.3. Aside from being unbelievably fast at making disk images; being able to write images to hard disks, network stores, and optical discs; and sporting a modern GUI that is slick yet doesn't hide technical details, Shadow-Protect has lots of welcome surprises. Its bootable restoration CD is based on Windows Vista PE (preboot environment), is much more tolerant of complex hardware than competitors’ Linux-based discs, and it accepts Windows drivers. You can mount writeable backup images to add items after the fact or segment them for later burning. You can restore a disk image to VMware or VirtualPC and immediately use it; you can even restore it to a different computer, where it will at least boot with only minor driver problems. In short, it’s the modern successor to Ghost 2003 that we’ve all been searching for.

Second Runner-Up: PerfectDisk 2008 Professional
$39.99; www.raxco.com

Sometimes when you have a specific medical problem, you want to see a specialist. For disk defragmenting needs, we think a specialist, in the form of PerfectDisk 2008 Professional, is a better choice than the defragmenter that comes with Windows or any utility suite. PerfectDisk is wicked fast, has plenty of options for background or screen saver optimizing, and sports an attractive interface that encourages exploration. It also includes a handy “folder-size” utility that helps you track down where all your free space disappeared to. Its “SmartPlacement” of files helps resist file fragmentation in the future, meaning you have to fragment less often, which is a win-win in our book.

Media File Apps

2008’s batch of best media file apps all have new or expanded features to get you your media wherever you are, provided you have some sort of digital device with you (and, ideally, provided that digital device has some sort of Internet connectivity).

Winner: Apple iTunes 8
Free; www.apple.com

Love ’em or hate ’em, there’s no denying that Apple seems to have a lock on the portable media player market with its iPods and iPhones. For all of these devices, Apple’s iTunes is the gateway, and Apple is to be commended for not resting on its laurels here. Instead, iTunes gains more features with every release while retaining its elegant interface and good stability.

iTunes 8 added a lot of desirable features, not the least of which is the App Store, where lucky iPod touch and iPhone users can buy, download, and install programs for their devices with a few simple clicks. The iTunes Store now restocks the formerly AWOL programs from NBC/Universal and offers HD programming for $2.99 an episode (and tosses in a free, compressed, low-res version of those HD purchases intended for playback on an iPod).

A new feature, “humbly” called Genius, scans your music library and then creates playlists of songs that it thinks “go together.” It phones home to Apple’s own computers for the heavy lifting and to use data collected from other iTunes users. But if you have a large library, it does a remarkably interesting, if not outright good, job of presenting you with new listening options for stuff you already own. Add to this easier LAN sharing, new visualizations, a new “Grid View” of your library, and it’s tough not to get sucked into the iTunes fold.

First Runner-Up: Google Picasa 3 (beta)
Free; www.google.com

A lot of people will casually describe Picasa as a Windows version of Apple’s iPhoto, but that’s really selling Picasa short. While Google has endowed Picasa with a healthy dose of Apple’s GUI-slickness and intuitiveness, it really does so very much more than iPhoto. Of course, it still scans for photos on your hard drives, displays them in thumbnails, and organizes them by date. But now it offers better touch-up tools (removing facial blemishes, for example); better backup, slideshow, and screen saver functions; integration with your Web cam; and much tighter integration with Google’s own online Photos features á la Flickr.

The online component now has a facial recognition feature that’s intriguing: Start tagging faces in your photos, and before long Picasa will start identifying the people in your photos automatically. Plus, it’s still the fastest way to print batches of photos to your photo printer.

Second Runner-Up: Orb Networks Orb
Free; www.orb.com

If you’ve ever wished you could have access to the multimedia files on your home PC from other PCs around the world, your Web-enabled smartphone, or the Internet-connected gaming console in your living room, then Orb is for you. Once installed on your PC and pointed to folders it can scan for your media, it makes them available and streams them to the aforementioned devices, provided you supply them with the right log-in and password. If your PC has a TV tuner, you can also watch live TV or recorded programs. You’ll get the best streaming results on a high-powered notebook, but even our much-maligned Palm Centro managed great video streaming over a 3G wireless network connection in the middle of a park.

Miscellaneous Software

There’s some software that we rely on every day that doesn’t readily fit into any real category, so trends are elusive. Still, it’s hard not to notice that there’s lots of great software that is offered to us free.

Winner: Sun Microsystems VirtualBox 2.0.4
Free; www.virtualbox.org

For years, if you wanted to run a virtual machine within your PC, your only real choice was from VMware—either in the form of the fantastically great and somewhat expensive VMware Workstation or the somewhat feature-lax yet free VMware Server. Sun’s rebuilding and releasing of its free VirtualBox has rather changed the game in virtualization, making a powerful and flexible virtualization tool easily available to the masses.

In Windows, VirtualBox installs with a slim 32MB download, and it installs quickly without adding a lot of extra virtual hardware adapters to your host system. Its speeds are comparable to VMware’s offerings, and it includes the most important options, such as snapshots and versioning. There are many virtual images available for download from the Internet and utilities for converting those from VMware. Some host OSes support a Seamless Mode, whereby windows from the guest OS appear on the main host's desktop, allowing for the appearance of running Windows programs directly on the Mac desktop or Linux desktop. For extra speed, VirtualBox has versions that run within 64-bit host operating systems.

First Runner-Up: dotSyntax Digsby
Free; www.digsby.com

If you chat with a lot of friends and colleagues with different IM clients, then you know how annoying it is to keep those different programs open. Add your social networking sites and your email accounts to the mix, and you’ve got the makings of a very cluttered desktop, and that’s before you get to any real work. Digsby can condense many of these programs down to its single skinnable window. It’s compatible with Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber IM clients; MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook social networking accounts (and blasting out individual Twitters is a snap); and it can check several email accounts (Web mail, POP, and IMAP) for new messages, as well. Digsby is a tremendous time-saver.

Second Runner-Up: Transfz
Free; www.transfz.com

If you’ve been around long enough to remember those helpful little TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs for DOS, then you’ll probably love Transfz (pronounced “transfuse”). Running silently in the Taskbar tray, Transfz does three main things. It highlights a word in any program: Press a hotkey, and you get an instant Internet search for that word from almost any Web site that has a search field. It manages up to 10 Windows Clipboards at once, making bulk copying and pasting a snap. Finally, it performs all sorts of text manipulations. Programming extensions to Transfz is simple, so there are a lot of them available for free, as well. It conservatively calculates the time it saves you, and after a month, we bet you’ll be surprised.

by Warren Ernst