Chris on Security

About a month ago I installed a trial version of Bitdefender Internet Security . This blog post goes over my experience with it, highlighting the features and what I liked and didn't. Bitdefender Application Bitdefender is the second antivirus solution I've tried a trial of recently (the first being Kaspersky, as documented here ). Having just come from using Kaspersky for a month the differences were quite apparent, especially the UI. I'll go over the features and my opinions further below. Shown below is the application window as seen when you start up Bitdefender Internet Security. Features and Tools The application provides a suite of tools broken down by tab and category, with the some default (and frequently used) features available on the "Dashboard" home page (seen in the image above). This includes a useful link to run a "quick scan" and access a few other features such as the VPN and Safepay privacy option. There is a an option t...

I installed a trial version of Kaspersky Internet Security to see whether I'd be happy to use it long term. This blog post goes over my experience using the product and what I like/dislike so far. Kaspersky Kaspersky Lab , founded by Eugene Kaspersky, is a Russian-based cybersecurity firm focusing on antivirus/anti-malware solutions for businesses and home users. Their antivirus solutions receive quite a lot of praise and are positively reviewed on tech sites. Despite consistently receiving very strong reviews and having reportedly excellent results against malware, Kaspersky Lab does receive some negative reviews based solely on the fact that the company is headquartered in Russia and user data is stored in their Russian-based data centers (this isn't true for European customers : their data is kept and processed in data centers in Zurich, Switzerland). The Russian aspect of the company has been enough of a reason for US government agencies to discontinue use of Kaspers...

VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) have become increasingly popular over time, and while you may have already heard of these services, you might be unsure about which VPN provider to choose or whether to use a VPN at all. As with many things related to technology and security the answers aren't always straightforward and it's hard to come by reliable information. In my attempt to research this area myself, I've found a lot of contradicting information. Various tech sites out there list what they consider the top 5 (or 10 or some other number) VPNs and the more I looked around it seemed there's no clear consensus as to which are the best VPNs. Further research (particularly on YouTube) has revealed several hardcore privacy advocates that seem to strongly argue against the use of VPNs. It seemed the more research I did the more confused I ended up being. Should you get a VPN or not? If you do, how can you decide which of the many (and there do seem to be many) providers to...

You've no doubt heard about antivirus solutions and that you likely need one to keep your machine safe. But what exactly is a virus, and what does an antivirus service actually do? How do viruses differ from malware? Do you need anti-malware if you already have an antivirus solution? I'll attempt to provide answers to these questions in this blog post. Software viruses Computer viruses are applications that infect files on a computer, and propagate by finding additional files to infect on the same computer, and potentially on additional hosts connected to the network. By corrupting files, the viruses have the effect of rendering files and applications inoperable and thus can cause a significant amount of damage and frustration. The notion of files becoming "infected", and the malicious software being replicated and spread to other parts of the system is why the "virus" terminology is so apt: this behavior seems to mimic the pathological viruses affe...