TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

To celebrate the fifteenth anniversary, Checkpoint Software, the security firm behind the popular ZoneAlarm firewall is offering everyone a free copy of ZoneAlarm Pro 2009. The promotion runs for 24 hours, starting at 09:00 EST (06:00 PDT) today, and includes a one-year license for one PC running Windows XP or Vista.

ZoneAlarm protects computers at the operating system level, preventing malware from sending out your information. Unlike the free version of the software, Zone Alarm Pro adds several features including identity-theft protection (with credit monitoring), anti-Spyware protection, and other privacy features. If the only firewall you are using is the one included with Windows, then you might want take advantage of this offer by signing up here – you'll have to wait for an email with the download link.

If you are still a Firefox 2 user, you may want to consider upgrading to Firefox 3 sooner rather than later. Mozilla's planned end of life (EOL) for Firefox 2 is approaching, with the company preparing to officially drop support for the browser starting next month. The most prominent effect this will have on Firefox 2 users is the lack of future security updates, which could prove to be risky as time goes on and more flaws are discovered.

Mozilla is obviously encouraging people to upgrade to Firefox 3. Some people have delayed in updating due to concerns they have with FF3, such as the new behavior of the address bar and stability concerns. While most of the complaints that people had about FF3 have been addressed since launch, and many other complaints can be overcome by configuration tweaks, it has not swayed every heart.

Even if you are attached to Firefox 2, a lack of future security updates is an important consideration. So, update today!

Right on schedule, Adobe released this week the 30-day trial downloads for all the products that compose its Creative Suite 4. The popular graphic design and web development applications Photoshop and Dreamweaver have been brought up to date with UI and speed enhancements in this new version.

The entire suite now sports a tabbed interface that should ease transition between CS4 applications running concurrently. Photoshop in particular gets some critical performance boosts in the form of true 64-bit compatibility and GPU acceleration to enable smoother panning and zooming.

With over a dozen major programs covering needs from web and print designers and video production, you can make your pick on what program to download (after registering on Adobe's site). The Illustrator trial weights about 1GB, Photoshop goes over 800MB, while Flash is closer to 900MB. A personal favorite, Adobe Fireworks is much lighter at around 443MB as well as Dreamweaver that is ~335MB.

In the world of office suites there isn't much room for anybody other than Microsoft, but their high prices have long been a setback for many. This is particularly true for Macs, where Office has a considerably smaller market share than in Windows, but that was all the opening Sun needed to port StarOffice 9 to the Mac at the cost of $35 for an individual license and $25 for a business user.

The native Mac support should prove to be a decent selling point, along with the ability to open the standard Open Document formats and the Microsoft-backed Open XML format that Office 2007 uses. StarOffice does face stiff competition, including from the very software it is based upon, OpenOffice.

They might be able to make headroom here, however, as Microsoft has taken a lot of flak for Office on the Mac, due to lack of support for many important features, slower updates than the PC and other factors.

If you are the type of user who likes testing many applications then you surely must have one loaded start menu, and probably a cluttered desktop as well. But getting access to those apps isn’t always quick. Enter Launchy, a very tidy and well-designed open source tool that makes the process of launching applications (or any other file, for that matter) extremely fast – you’ll almost forget about the start menu and file manager, let alone the icons on your desktop.

Launchy basically indexes the program shortcuts in your start menu but its range can be extended by adding custom folder locations and file types. Once installed, it’ll run silently on the background until you call it up by pressing the Alt + Space key combination and start typing the name of the program you need. It usually takes no more than three to five letters for Launchy to lock on whatever you are after and you won’t even need to take your fingers off the keyboard.


It's also highly configurable. You can change its look by choosing a different skin and extend its functionality via additional plug-ins that will let you use it as a calculator, run web searches directly on sites like Wikipedia or Google, and more. I suggest you give it a try; it is the most efficient way to open folders, websites, files and programs on your PC and has become an essential utility for me.

All Firefox users whether you're still using the old 2.x branch or have moved on to the new 3.x series, Mozilla has new updates available for you today. The company has released Firefox 2.0.0.18 and Firefox 3.0.4, primarily to include some new security updates.

Firefox 3 has received at least eight security updates, along with a “stability” update and a small scattering of new features, though none of them particularly exciting. Meanwhile, Firefox 2 received even more fixes, totalling 10 security updates among the scattering of other improvements as well. If you haven't been automatically updated already, grab the update when you can.

Update: AVG's press statement regarding this issue after the jump – apparently it doesn't affect the English language version of Windows XP.

A recent update for AVG 7.5 and up (free and paid editions) is causing havoc with some users, who are following the antivirus program’s recommendation to delete a critical system file after being wrongly identified as a Trojan. The file in question is “user32.dll” and its absence will cause a system to either stop booting or go into an endless reboot loop.

AVG says it has fixed the current user32.dll problem and apologized for the mishap on its forums. It also offers help on correcting the problem for those who have already deleted the file, suggesting they try rebooting in safe mode and use the AVG Virus Vault to restore the missing file, or use the Windows XP CD to repair this issue.

This is not the first embarrassing setback AVG has suffered this year. Back in July, the company had to reconfigure its LinkScanner tool after various websites complained about the loads of fake traffic and increased bandwidth costs as a result of the tool’s proactive scanning for malware.

Love it or hate it, Windows is currently the world's most popular operating system and has enjoyed that position for a number of years. Few of us were around to remember its roots, but there was a time when Windows was completely unknown to the world. In fact, today marks the 25th anniversary of Windows, following the original 1.0 release back in 1983.

Windows 1.0 may have been very short lived and had very little actual practical use, but it still marked the beginning of the dominance of Windows. In the early years of Windows development, Bill Gates was so bold as to claim that within a year, 90% of PCs would be running Windows. He certainly missed his target date, but the end result was almost dead-on accurate.

Launch difficulties of Windows delayed the actual introduction to market for a further two years after the initial announcement, and initial adoption of Windows was slow. It eventually however gained share, switched from being a front-end to being a full on operating system and today retains the position of the most popular OS in the world.

Parallels has popped out the next major release of its virtualization tool, Desktop for Mac, which lets users of Intel-based Mac systems seamlessly run Windows applications. Version 4.0 claims to improve OS integration, performs up to 50% faster and incorporates a redesigned user interface and over 50 new features and improvements in total.

This release also improves battery life by a claimed 20% when using Parallels on a notebook, adds 64-bit support and the ability to make better use of multi-core processors. Graphics performance has been improved as well with added support for DirectX 9, DirectX Pixel Shader 2.0 and OpenGL 2.0 – though the company admits hardcore gamers are better off using a native install.

Parallels Desktop 4.0 costs $79.99 but users can test a free, fully-functional copy for 15 days. Existing users can upgrade for $39.99 until the end of November or $49.99 afterwards. Check out the full list of new features over at the Parallels site.

Data compression is a popular way of reducing file sizes and making back-ups easier, and while paid applications such as WinZip and WinRAR have long dominated the scene, I suggest you give 7-Zip a try. The interface is kind of lacking but this open source file archiver offers the highest compression ratio of all three, using its own 7z format, to deliver results that are usually 30 to 50 percent better than standard ZIP.

Shrinking files using the highest compression settings for the 7z format can admittedly take a long while, but of course all of the common file formats such as ZIP, RAR, TAR and others are also supported, in which case 7-Zip will generally perform faster than its counterparts. Other features include integration with the Windows shell, the ability to create self-extracting archives, and password protection.

There’s not much more one can say about a file archiver. Bottom line is, whenever you receive a compressed file, chances are that 7-Zip can deal with it fast and without a hitch.

In its boldest effort yet to win over emerging businesses, Microsoft is launching a new program that will allow some start-ups to use its server software free of charge for up to three years. Dubbed BizSpark, the project is open to private companies around the world that are less than 3 years old and make less than $1 million in annual revenue.

Under the program, qualified startups will not only receive a range of Microsoft products, from Visual Studio to Windows Server, SQL Server and others, but they’ll also gain access to the company’s technical support team and powerful public relations machine.

This is certainly great news for start-ups and, of course, also gives Microsoft a way to promote the use of its software at a time when open-source alternatives continue to gain traction, and rivals such as Google and others are promoting their cloud platforms for building web applications.

There are no upfront costs for participants. However, they will be required to pay a $100 program fee once they “graduate” from the program (being acquired or surpassing the revenue limit) or at the end of the three years, and then transition to the normal licensing fees for the software they continue to use.

There's more interesting Firefox news today, with Mozilla releasing a beta feature to a certain pool of testers. The new feature, the privacy mode, is intended to protect any particular browsing session from another, letting you browse knowing others can't spy on your afterward – whether in your own home or at a public location.

The latter is probably where it can be made the best use of, particularly at Internet cafes or schools where computers may be shared with many people in a single day. It isn't mentioned how many testers are actually making use of the feature, but Mozilla expects (and many others do as well) for it to appear in the final release of Firefox 3.1. If you'd like to become a tester yourself, Mozilla has an open invitation for you.

Google has quietly released a new beta of its Chrome browser. Version 0.3.154.9 fixes a number of security bugs, including a pop-up spoofing vulnerability, in addition to improving the performance and reliability of plug-ins such as those used to view PDFs, Flash, and other rich media.

The company has also changed the behavior of file downloading to help protect users from malware and eliminated the storage of data from secure sites. The updated Chrome also saw some minor interface changes designed to make using the incognito mode more intuitive. Moreover, the spell checker now works on text input fields and allows users to add words to the spell check dictionary.

All in all, this is primarily a bugfix release, but demonstrates Google's commitment to continuing the development of Chrome, which was received with great interest online but has faded in usage recently. Users can get the latest version here or simply by clicking the update button in the “About” window of Chrome.

I often find myself moving between workspaces and machines, so lately, I’ve been searching for an easy way to keep my important files accessible at all times. Dropbox is a newcomer to the personal file storage, sharing and syncing space, yet it is dead simple to use and comes pretty close to getting it all right.

This cross-platform tool acts like a regular folder on your machine and runs quietly in the background. You can manage files within this folder just like elsewhere on your machine (add, edit, copy, and delete them) and changes will be automatically synced between all other computers on which you are running the Dropbox software – files and folders are displayed with checkmark and arrow icons to indicate their synchronization status. You can also share folders to collaborate on a bunch of stuff with other people and even share files with non-Dropbox users by using the public folder.


The synchronization experience with Dropbox is impressively seamless and requires no user intervention at all. What’s more, all files in your Dropbox folder will be securely stored online and version controlled so you can revert to an earlier version of a document, restore it completely when lost, or access it via web from any computer. Dropbox is limited to 2GB of free storage space and syncing, but if you need more, a 50GB premium account is also available for $9.99 per month or $99 per year.

Canonical has announced the official roll out of Ubuntu 8.10, codenamed Intrepid Ibex. The new desktop release of the popular Linux distribution incorporates the latest Gnome 2.24 and a Linux 2.6.27 kernel, along with new versions of many popular open source desktop applications and a bunch of important new features.

Ubuntu 8.10 introduces native support for 3G networks and improved Wi-Fi support, better and faster support for a wide range of inbuilt or external devices, and a few nice privacy features such as a guest user mode and support for directory encryption. Another interesting feature is the ability to easily install Intrepid Ibex on a thumb drive, for those considering making the switch, but not quite ready for a full install.

All in all, Ubuntu 8.10 is another nice incremental improvement, and its enhanced network abilities alone will make it a worthwhile upgrade to many. As always, you can download it for free from the Ubuntu website or check the official release notes here.

Another interesting Linux story is in the news today. The success of Ubuntu has spread the distro far and wide in recent years and with the upcoming release of their next version comes promises of spreading it even farther. Current estimates, coming from Canonical, estimate that today there are over 8 million Ubuntu users in the world. That's an impressive number, one that Canonical is not ignoring.

That number is expected to grow with their upcoming Ubuntu 8.10 release, with Canonical believing it will help their desktop side in particular. The continued development of Ubuntu is made possible by the hundreds of developers, both paid and volunteer, who maintain it. Eight million users is an impressive number for how short, relatively, Ubuntu has been around. It also retains their position as the number one choice for Linux distributions worldwide, though we all know that can change.

Depending on what estimate you use, the number of users could represent upwards of 25% of the entire Linux user base worldwide, though accurate statistics for Linux adoption are difficult to come by.

A bit of Linux and Mac payware has become free today (at least temporarily), following a pretty unusual marketing campaign in which Codeweavers promised to make Windows-API enabler & WINE GUI CrossOver free to customers for an entire day, if U.S. president George W. Bush achieved one of six goals proposed by the company.

If you already make use of a fully-Linux or fully-Mac environment, there isn't much room for a CrossOver offering. But if you find yourself making use of Wine quite often (which I do), their proprietary version is designed to run certain applications, such as the Microsoft Office suite, natively in Linux or Mac without fuss.

Due to incredible demand after the offer went up, their site has, of course, been brought to its knees. At the moment they have a barebones site in place that will still accept serial requests with which you can use to download the software.

Symantec is seeking to add another layer of protection to their security profile, with the introduction of a software “reputation” system. The new system would be able to rate different programs based upon their reputation, using techniques that can supposedly identify whether a program is malicious or safe.

The idea is to use a system of cataloging, which looks at the profile of programs on the computers of Symantec's customers, categorizing the “reputation” of the machines and then deciding whether a program on any particular computer is risky or not. That way, the more people that use a program, the more likely it is to be designated as “safe.” Symantec plans on classifying their user base, from very safe to dangerous, and using that information to help them create profiles of different programs.

There are obvious flaws to point out in such a system. Many people use programs that are relatively rare, and often people that have machines with constant virus or spyware infections will use very popular programs. Overall, though, Symantec believes that computers they identify as “unsafe” are more likely to have “unsafe” programs on them.

This is definitely an interesting idea. There are many ways it could go horribly wrong, so I look forward to seeing how Symantec plans on implementing it and how successful they are.

No matter how hard Microsoft tries to push developers to be excited about Vista, the overwhelming number of XP installs in the world makes it a losing fight to try and develop exclusively for the newer OS. One company who was an early advocate for Vista development, Yahoo, is taking one of their biggest profile programs off the market.

Yahoo has decided to discontinue the development and release of the Vista-optimized Yahoo Messenger Client, instead returning to a one-size-fits-all client that is compatible with various versions of the OS. Yahoo claims the change is to improve efficiency in development and make the program more consistent, and it's very easy to see why – developing two separate code bases side by side for two different platforms can lead to all sorts of compatibility problems.

Yahoo isn't disabling the Vista client's access to the YIM network, but has encouraged anyone using the Vista client to install the standard version.

Mouse and hand gestures are a semi-rare feature we see pop up in games or applications from time to time. They are starting to become more popular, though, as people seek to break out of the traditional point-and-click way of interacting with PCs. More recently, Mozilla has delved into experiments using the stock gesture support that is found on the newest MacBooks, and now using the pre-beta version of Firefox 3.1, people can tinker with gestures in the browser.

Mozilla hasn't planned this for a final release of Firefox 3.1, but is certainly encouraging feedback at this point. The gestures take place on the trackpad as opposed to the screen, and so far include only the most basic functions: going forward or back, going to the top or bottom of a page, et cetera.

Interacting with computers via gestures is a very nifty idea. Unfortunately many gesture systems are more cumbersome than sticking to a mouse and keyboard, so there aren't many viable ones in place yet.