Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Our personal choice for low-cost, well actually free Windows anti-virus has been AVG for a long time now, which as you can imagine is directly related to the price. There are lots of great alternatives and I cannot or will not attempt to tell you which is the best, however if you are looking for another alternative to AVG, that you can also get for free, check out Microsoft OneCare 2.0, which currently is free after rebates. Amazon is offering OneCare 2.0 for $30 along with a $30 mail-in-rebate, which will in turn lower the cost to $0. Similar to other subscription based services, this $30 will offer one-years worth of protection, after which it will have to be renewed.

Product [Amazon] Via [jkOnTheRun]

We love new gadgets and we always keep an eye on every new releases that come out of the market. We adore its shiny new look and get awed by its features. But have you ever stopped and thought about the possibility that the software that comes preinstalled in our new gadgets might be infected by viruses?

The Associated Press warns that some of today’s gadgets are coming into the market with extras - viruses. Recent cases examined by the AP pointed out that Apple iPods, digital picture frames sold by big-box retailers Target and Best Buy and the TomTom Navigation all contained viruses even before consumers ever had them in their hands.

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In an effort to better brand themselves Grisoft will be changing their name to better reflect their current product line. Their name will be changed to AVG Technologies, which is a name that more people will recognize thanks to their current AVG software line. They are the makers of the great and free “AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition” a reliable and trusted anti-virus software program.

In a lead up to the name change, Grisoft has spent the previous several months purchasing the AVG domains in various markets around the world and hope to have a smooth transition. The name change is currently being reflected on the website, although the domain name is currently still grisoft.com, no mention on when the domain names will switch over.

Via [Geekzone]

Imagine…you’re in an unfamiliar city, its 3:00 a.m. and a virus has been attacking your laptop since midnight. You’re miles away from your corporate tech department and your personal computer repair shop. By 5:00 a.m., your meeting begins in three hours, the virus has corrupted every file and it won’t let you reach your client’s presentation. Who do you turn to?

For your grandma we suggested Debuggler, but why don’t you try YourTechOnline. You can call or email (if that hasn’t crashed) YourTechOnline.com whenever a problem arises. In less than fifteen minutes, you are connected to a technician.

The technician provides instant messages and phone sessions in order to learn the details of your problem. Once he understands the extent of the issue, he informs you of the length of time the repair will take. You then purchase an adequate amount of time, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, etc. The expert technician then, via a downloadable plug-in, takes control of your desktop and fixes the computer problem right before your eyes – while giving you the ability to override the technician’s movements at any time. (Billing does not begin until the technician begins working on your computer).

YourTechOnline.com addresses all computer-related issues including pop ups, homepage hijackers, spyware, rootkits, viruses, slow computers, email and networking problems. Unfortunately they cannot fix bad plane food or pointless business trips.

Try it [YourTechOnline]

McDonalds recently ran a contest for winning a free MP3 player for text messaging a code. It appears that 10,000 people won an MP3 player and couple free songs. What they didn’t account for was winning some free spyware with their player. It seems that McDonalds didn’t think to carefully when choosing the vendor that supplied their McDonalds branded MP3 player. The MP3 player when plugged in, automatically installed the spyware QQPass that sends password information to a web site as well as other information. It also opens up the computer for backdoor access that can cause even more problems for the infected computers.

We all heard about the Sony rootkit issue with playing Sony CDs and them restricting users from burning to CD as well as opening up the computer to a new vulnerability which spawned even more viruses that compromised the infected computers.

This new McDonalds spyware causes even more problems including the user/password sending to a set server for collection from the developers. This issue is becoming increasingly worrisome for regular computers users, it seems that the playing field isn’t as clear as it used to be. Not only do you have to worry now about playing games online, downloading anything from anywhere or attempting to listen to a CD but you have to worry about what you plugin to your computer and risk losing by doing such.

This story is early in its bad media cycle so it will be interesting to see how badly it gets spun and how McDonalds will deal with the issue.

Read [New Launches]