The holiday season has finally arrived. This time of year is wonderful and special for everyone – it’s the time to be with your family and friends, have fun, give and receive presents, and even make dreams come true! And of course it’s the time of Christmas sales.

We at Auslogics are also having a Christmas sale and we offer you a 25% discount on Auslogics BoostSpeed 4.5 and Auslogics Antivirus! Getting your discount is easy – all you need to do is enter the discount code CHRISTMAS2009 when purchasing. Hurry up – this offer ends on the 1st of January 2010!

Speed Up and Protect Your Computer

Computer security, speed, and performance are the top three concerns of every user. Everybody knows how easily computers get infected with viruses and spyware, and how quickly they become sluggish and even start freezing up. Our team understands how important it is to have a secure, fast, and efficient computer – that’s why we’ve developed Auslogics Antivirus and Auslogics BoostSpeed.

Auslogics Antivirus is one of the most comprehensive antiviruses available on the market. Reliable and feature-packed, it will protect you from viruses, trojans, spyware, identity theft, and other known and unknown threats. It can also operate in Safe Mode to remove resilient viruses. Auslogics Antivirus has lots of customization options and can run in two special modes – Laptop Mode and Game Mode. Like all Auslogics’ products it’s fast, very easy to use, doesn’t affect computer performance, and has sleek Windows 7-style user interface.

Auslogics BoostSpeed is a comprehensive system maintenance tool. It will ensure your computer is fast and optimized for best performance, protect your privacy by erasing traces of Internet activity, wiping free disk space, and erasing files beyond restoration. It will also advise you on which Windows services are safe to disable and will let you easily apply dozens of useful tweaks that will make your computer run fast and smooth.

And now you have the chance to get one or both of these products with a 25% discount if you buy them before the 1st of January 2010! Click here to get Auslogics BoostSpeed 4.5 and here to get Auslogics Antivirus. Don’t forget to enter the discount code CHRISTMAS2009.

Happy holidays!

Defragmenting disks is a very important part of computer maintenance, because badly fragmented hard drives can make your PC slow and unreliable. That’s why you need to defrag regularly. The easiest way to do it is to schedule defrag to run once a week. It’s best to schedule defragmentation for the time when you are not using your computer, so that it won’t interrupt your work.

But what if you keep forgetting to schedule defrag or it keeps annoying you by starting up when you are in the middle of something? The answer is to use defrag screensaver. It will start automatically when your system goes idle, so your work will never get interrupted by defragmentation again.

Auslogics Disk Defrag Screen Saver is a useful tool that defragments your hard drives in screensaver mode. It’s fast, very light on system resources, and looks fantastic.

When your system goes idle, defrag screensaver will quickly analyze your hard drives and check whether they need to be defragged or not. If your disks are fragmented, Disk Defrag Screen Saver will start defragmenting and will pause whenever you resume work. Defragmentation will be completed when you take your next break. As you can see, this is the ideal way to schedule defrag and make it as unintrusive as possible.

Disk Defrag Screen Saver is very easy to use. First of all, download and install it. It will be added to the list  of your screensavers and set as current screensaver automatically. Then you can customize it and schedule defrag. Here’s how:

1. Right-click somewhere on your desktop background and go to Properties or Personalize. A new window will appear
2. Go to the Screen Saver tab
3. Set the system idle time for defrag screensaver to wait before starting up
4. Click on the Settings button and select which drives you want defragmented

While defragmenting Auslogics Disk Defrag Screen Saver displays a comprehensive real-time fragmentation map. It lets you track overall defragmentation progress and see which file is being defragmented at the moment.

Auslogics Disk Defrag Screen Saver is a great app that will ensure top hard drive performance. It also makes defragmentation as easy and enjoyable as it can be. Disk Defrag Screen Saver supports Windows 7/Vista/2008/XP/2003, 32-bit and 64-bit and it’s absolutely free.

Part Two

In my previous post I’ve used Auslogics Antivirus as an example to show you some basic ways to configure your antivirus software for maximum performance. Today I’m going to tell you how to fine-tune Auslogics Antivirus, so that it becomes even faster and lighter on system resources.

1. Tune-up Real-time Protection

All antiviruses offer real-time protection. This means that everything that happens on your computer is monitored and analysed by your antivirus. But keep in mind that your computer performs thousands of operations every second and there is nothing suspicious about most of them. Basically, there is no need for your antivirus to scan everything all the time. So why not disable functions that are not needed.

First of all let’s configure real-time protection so that it doesn’t scan everything. To do that:

1. Open Auslogics Antivirus
2. Click on the Antivirus tab and then go to the Shield tab
3. 
4. Click on the Custom Level button. This will open the Real Time Protection Settings window.
5. 
6. Select the Scan Programs radio button. This way the antivirus will stop monitoring safe files, like text documents.
7. Now select Do not scan files greater than… Specify 10240 in the field that will appear. This way your antivirus won’t monitor files larger than 10MB. Viruses are small files, so it doesn’t make any sense to check large files, e.g movies or songs, for infections.

Some people also disable network shares and http traffic scans, but I don’t recommend it, because most infections come from the Internet and local networks.

2. Schedule Scans

Pretty much all antiviruses have an option to schedule scans. Most of the time this option is already enabled. By default scans are scheduled for midnight, which isn’t very useful, because most people’s computers are switched off. If that’s the case with your antivirus settings, then you miss out on daily antivirus scans and jeopardise your computer security.

The solution is simple – re-schedule daily scans:

1. Open the main window and go to Antivirus
2. Go to the Virus Scan tab and double-click Deep System Scan
3. 
4. Go to Scheduler and specify the time when you want to run daily system scans. I usually have a break between 3pm and 4pm, so I scheduled scans for that time slot.
5. 
6. Now go to Overview and enable the Minimize to tray option. This way the antivirus won’t annoy you while performing scans.

3. Use Game and Laptop Modes

Auslogics Antivirus has a unique feature called Game Mode. So, if you’re a gamer, enable this option. Here’s how:

1. Open Auslogics Antivirus main window
2. Go to the Game/Laptop Mode tab and select Automatic Game Mode is enabled
3. 
4. Don’t forget to tick the Enter game mode when in full screen checkbox

Now Auslogics Antivirus will be gentle on system resources whenever you start playing a game or watching a movie.

If you are a laptop user and your laptop runs on battery quite often, make sure Laptop Mode is enabled. You can check that by opening the Game/Laptop Mode tab.

Now your antivirus software is configured for best performance without jeopardising PC protection. Its real-time protection only checks files that could be infected, so that it doesn’t waste system resources, and scheduled daily scans will ensure that your computer stays healthy. And anyway, now you know where all the settings are, so you can keep tweaking and optimizing your antivirus.

If you still don’t have any antivirus software installed, you can download Auslogics Antivirus here. Other good antiviruses can be found here.

On Thursday, 3 December,  Avast had a bad false positive issue. They’ve released an update that mistakenly flagged hundreds of innocent files and applications as the Win32:Delf-MZG (or in some cases Win32:Zbot-MKK)Trojan. According to Avast blog post, amongst mistakenly marked files were programs from Adobe, Realtek, various media players, sound card drivers, etc. Our customers told us that Auslogics BoostSpeed was one of the falsely marked programs as well.

We would like to assure you that our software doesn’t contain any malware or spyware.

The erroneous avast! update was fixed the same day. Users who updated their avast! antivirus after 6 a.m. GMT on Wednesday shouldn’t have experienced any problems.

Part One

This day and age it’s absolutely crucial to have good antivirus software installed on your computer to protect your operating system and your personal data. Developers offer us dozens of solutions, all of which have extensive functionality and loads of features and options. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But there are a couple of drawbacks -  most antiviruses are pretty heavy on system resources when using default settings and not very easy to configure to fit your particular needs. As a result, a lot of people get so frustrated, that they either disable or uninstall their security software. Then they catch numerous infections and have to deal with the consequences.

Luckily, there is a better solution. Most antiviruses allow you to configure them to your liking. In this post I’m going to describe the best ways to configure and optimize Auslogics Antivirus, but you can use my advice to configure pretty much any antivirus software.

1. Choose Advanced User Interface Mode

First of all you’ll need to switch the user interface to Advanced mode. That way all customization options will become available. To choose Advanced mode:

1. Find Auslogics Antivirus tray icon (red triangle) and right-click on it
2. Go to Basic Setting
3. Find and select Advanced Mode
4. 
5. Click Apply and click OK

2. Disable Unneeded Components

Like a lot of other programs, Auslogics Antivirus protects your computer from nearly all possible security threats.  It monitors all system components and all ways malware uses to get installed onto your PC. This boosts your protection levels, but also slows down your computer. The solution is to decide which antivirus components you need and disable the rest.

For example, if you only use web based email from known providers (like Gmail), you can safely disable email scans, because all attachments get scanned anyway. Most anti-viruses use a special service to scan emails, so disabling those scans will help you free up RAM.

Here’s how you can disable email scans in Auslogics Antivirus:

1. Open Auslogics Antivirus
2. Go to the Shield tab and click on the Custom Level button
3. 
4. Then uncheck the relevant checkboxes
5. 
6. Click OK

If you don’t use any IM programs, then it will make sense to disable antiphishing protection for Yahoo and Live messengers. Just go to the main program window and uncheck the relevant checkboxes. You can also disable antiphishing for browsers that you’ve got installed, but never use (I almost never use IE).

However, if you use IM programs a lot, it’s best to ensure that they are well protected – it’s way too easy to get infected through such programs. And what’s worse, you will never suspect a thing. You might get infected through a file sent to you by a friend or a relative, if their computer is already infected.

To ensure that your IMs are protected:

1. Open Auslogics Antivirus and click on the Shield tab
2. Click on the Custom Level button
3. Check the Scan Files sent/received over IM checkbox

If you are really concerned about your chat privacy, you might want to enable encryption. To do that, click on the Encryption tab on the left hand side and make sure encryption is enabled.

Anyway, back to optimizing your antivirus.

3. Exclude Safe Folders

I’m sure that you have folders with photos, music, and movies saved on your hard drive. Most of them will have either a lot of files, or pretty large files (or both).  If your antivirus software scans these folders every time it performs a routine scan, it must be taking ages to complete.

Well, let me tell you that it’s highly unlikely to get a virus into one of those folders. And even if you do, you are bound to notice it immediately. So why not add them to the exclusions list and speed up scans? Just be sensible and don’t exclude too many folders.

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Open the program and click on the Antivirus tab on the left hand side
   
2. Then click on the Exclusions tab
3. Make sure that exclusions are enabled
4. Click on the “+” sign
5. 
6. Select Do not scan files or folders and click Next
7. Select files and folders you don’t want to be scanned and click Next
   
8. 
9. Now select when not to scan those files and folders – on the right hand side select On-demand, On-access, or Both
10. Click Next

I have more tips to share with you, but I think that’s enough for one post. Look out for Part 2.

TBC

The holiday season has arrived for many people from different countries and cultures of the world. This time of year is wonderful and special for everyone – it’s the time for having fun, being with your friends and family, giving and receiving presents, and even making dreams come true!

For me, giving presents is just as exciting as receiving them. And what fun it is to shop for gifts, knowing that they will bring happiness and joy to your loved ones!

I’m pretty sure that you will do at least some of your shopping online. It’s not a secret that online retailers offer great deals. But at the same time there is always a potential danger of your money getting stolen by shifty dealers, scammers, and spammers.

OK, so maybe some of you don’t mind giving a couple of hundred dollars to thieves. However, it would be much better to donate that money to charity.

If you want to protect yourself from online fraud, then read on! Here are five simple tips that will help you shop online safely.

1. Use a Secure PC

No matter how careful you are, there is no guarantee that your computer is not infected. Anyone who browses the Internet, visits social websites, and downloads software simply cannot be 100% sure that their PC is malware- and spyware-free. So, before you start shopping, check that your computer has comprehensive protection and run anti-virus and anti-spyware scans. Use reliable up-to-date software.

We recommend using Auslogics Antivirus – not only will it protect you against viruses, spyware, and other threats, but it also has a feature called Privacy Control. This feature is especially designed to prevent hackers from stealing your personal data, so shopping online will be more secure. Auslogics Antivirus has a free unlimited 30-day trial, which will keep you fully protected for the next month.

If you can, avoid shopping from public computers, or a PC that your kids use to play online games and chat with their friends. Those PCs are likely to be infested with spyware, so your private data can get stolen no matter how careful you are.

2. Always Shop From Trusted Sites

There are a lot of sites that offer amazing bargains. In fact, some of them are so amazing that they simply can’t be true! Well, most of the time they aren’t – a lot of websites only pretend to be shops. All they want is to steal your money. Remember, nobody is going to offer you a car for the price of a burger. Therefore, I strongly advise you not to use search engine shopping. Or if you do, check and double-check the website before entering any payment details.

Pay attention to:

• security seals

• shipping, return, and refund policies
• use of secure connection (https://) when the website asks you to enter payment details

You can also research unfamiliar shops on sites like RipoffReport.

Never-ever buy anything advertised via emails from unknown senders and never click on any links in those emails either. Those emails are almost always a scam and links take you to websites that put viruses onto your system. And never shop at web-sites that ask you to wire money or send money orders.

3. Control Spam

If you’re concerned about getting spammed by online retailers, you can always either create a separate email address for shopping online, or create aliases. Here’s how it’s done using Gmail.

For example, your address is myemail@gmail.com and you are shopping at a website called greatoffer.com. So, when giving them your email address, type it as myemail+greatoffer@gmail.com. That way all future communication from that shop will be addressed to myemail+greatoffer@gmail.com.

So if they or someone from their network try to spam you, you will know it’s them and will be able to easily block them.

4. Pay With a Credit Card

Most of you will have several bank cards – some credit, some debit. Both can be used for online shopping, but it’s safer to use a credit card. Experts say credit cards give you less hassle when dealing with your bank, should unauthorized charges show up later on a monthly statement. Besides, you wouldn’t want to pay huge interest on your debit card overdraft, would you?

5. Think About Alternative Payment Methods

Did you know that you don’t necessarily have to use a credit/debit card when shopping online? There are plenty of other ways to pay for the goods you purchased – pre-paid credit cards, gift cards and certificates, and sometimes you can pay in cash upon delivery. Also there are websites like billmelater.com that allow you to shop online without having to enter your bank card details. Besides, online retailers actually encourage you to use a service like that by offering free shipping and an option to postpone your payment for up to 6 months.

These tips should help you shop online safely so that you don’t become yet another fraud victim. Enjoy your shopping and have a wonderful holiday season!

Today we have some exciting news – the all new Disk Defrag 3 is out of beta. Auslogics Disk Defrag is not just a simple defrag utility – now it’s a fully featured disk optimizer. The new version has features that beat paid analogs, has new Windows 7-style user interface, and is even faster than before. And it remains absolutely FREE.

What’s New?

1. Free Space Consolidation

Simple defragmentation only defrags files and not free disk space. This means that free space is scattered all over the disk. When new files are created, Windows fills those small free space fragments in. The more fragmented the free space is, the more fragmented new files will be. Disk Defrag 3 consolidates free space into a large contiguous block, so that there are no “holes”. This technology effectively prevents file fragmentation and speeds up disk access.

2. System Files Smart Placement

Quite often Windows system files get placed all over the disk and end up mixed with other files. As a result Windows takes longer to access them. Disk Defrag 3 arranges system files by defragmenting and moving them to the faster part of the disk. This improves overall computer performance and makes your system run smoother.

3. Keeping the MFT Reserved Zone Clear

NTFS file system reserves about 12.5% of disk space for the MFT records (a place where information about every file and directory is stored). However, when the rest of the disk space is getting low, the MFT Reserved Zone is used to store regular files. This may lead to MFT fragmentation, which will force HDD heads to move more and slow down data access. Disk Defrag 3 moves regular files from the MFT Reserved Zone to the rest of the disk space, allowing NTFS to allocate contiguous space for the MFT records and prevent its fragmentation.

4. List of Fragmented Files

Auslogics Disk Defrag 3 creates a list of all fragmented files after performing disk analysis. Selecting any file from the list will highlight its clusters’ location on the fragmentation map. Selected files can be easily defragmented or added to the ignore list.

Other features include options to integrate Disk Defrag into Windows Explorer context menu, run autodefragmentation when system goes idle, and minimize the application into the system tray.

You can find out more and download the new Auslogics Disk Defrag here. There is also a portable version of Disk Defrag that can be downloaded here.

Every time you connect to the Internet, browse websites, download files, read emails, do online banking and a number of other things you can potentially get bombarded with viruses and spyware, or become a fraud or identity theft victim. That’s why it’s so important to keep your computer fully protected.

Auslogics Antivirus is one of the most comprehensive antiviruses available on the market. Reliable and feature-packed, it will protect you from viruses, trojans, spyware, identity theft, and other known and unknown threats, and can also operate in Safe Mode to remove resilient viruses. Like all Auslogics’ products it’s fast, doesn’t affect computer performance, and has sleek Windows 7-style user interface.

Let’s have a look at what it has to offer:

1. Real-time Protection

Auslogics Antivirus offers constant real-time PC protection. It scans all accessed files, emails, web sites, and IM chats for possible threats and blocks any attempts to modify system files. The program uses both heuristics and a virus/spyware database to provide maximum protection. Its Active Virus Control feature protects from new threats by analysing the activity of all running applications.

2. Privacy Control

In the past few years identity theft has become a huge issue. That’s why it’s so important to have software that successfully blocks spyware, trojans, keyloggers, phishing, and other data theft tools.  Auslogics Antivirus Privacy Control does all that and more. It will protect all your sensitive data, like bank card numbers, Internet banking details,  and all your passwords, from being stolen by hackers.

Privacy Control offers four-level protection:

• Identity Control protects your confidential data by analysing all outgoing traffic.
• Registry Control monitors the Registry and warns you if any applications are trying to modify it, so that they can be executed on Windows startup.
• Cookie Control doesn’t allow web sites to put cookies onto your computer without your permission.
• Script Control asks for your permission for any scripts to be executed.

3. Network Module

This feature was designed for those who have home network and are concerned about its security. You can set a master computer from which you will be able to run scans, view logs, fix security issues, and update the program on all network computers.

4. Customization Options

Auslogics Antivirus has extensive customization options that make it an ideal fit for both novice and experienced users, as well as gamers and laptop users. You can either select a profile that best describes the way you use you computer (Typical or Gamer), or select the Custom profile and configure the settings to fit your particular needs.

Apart from that, Auslogics Antivirus has different modes, that will suit most users:

• Game Mode makes sure that Auslogics Antivirus will not interrupt you when you are playing games. It starts automatically when you run an application from a trusted game list or when an application goes to full screen. Game Mode disables all alerts, pop-ups, and scheduled scans, and becomes unintrusive without reducing computer protection level.

• Laptop Mode starts automatically every time your laptop switches to battery power. It will minimize the program’s power consumption while keeping your laptop secure.

• Novice Mode will suit computer beginners and those who don’t want to fiddle with antivirus settings. It’s extremely easy to use – all security issues can be fixed by clicking on the Fix All Issues button.

• Intermediate Mode user interface has five tabs – a tab for each security module.  This mode is for those who have better computer knowledge, or want to have more customization options.

• Expert Mode interface offers the most complete list of settings, as well as extensive customization and monitoring options. This mode allows to manually configure each function of the program.

Auslogics Antivirus is compatible with Windows 7/Vista/2008/XP/2003, 32-bit and 64-bit and dual-core CPU.  You can download a free unrestricted 30-day trial version here. If you like it, you can then buy a one year license for $29.95 USD.

We are happy to present you the new Auslogics Disk Defrag 3^beta! We call it “new” because Disk Defrag 3^beta is not just a defragmenter but a fully featured disk optimizer. We’ve supplied it with advanced techniques of disk optimization that only paid analogs have. With Disk Defrag 3^beta you can replace regular data files from the MFT Reserved Zone, consolidate free space and optimize system files placement. Let’s have a closer look at how these optimization techniques may affect your PC performance.

System files smart placement

Commonly used by Windows, system files may be scattered all over the disk and intermixed with data files. Disk Defrag 3^beta arranges system files by defragmenting and moving them to the faster part of the disk.  This minimizes the time needed for HDD to access system files and improves overall computer performance.

Free space consolidation

It is not a secret that a simple defragmentation leaves the free space on the disk highly fragmented. It means that there are many free space «holes» all over the disk. Windows fills in those free spaces with newly created or extended files. The more fragmented the free space is, the more fragmented new files will be.

Disk Defrag 3^beta merges all those free space «holes» into a large contiguous block during optimization process. This allows the file system to create new files without fragmentation. As a result, free space consolidation dramatically reduces further disk fragmentation.

Keeping the MFT Reserved Zone Clear

Any NTFS drive is divided into two main zones: MFT and the rest of the disk. MFT (Master File Table) is a place where information about every file and directory is stored. In order to keep MFT records contiguous, Windows reserves about 12.5% of the disk volume for them. This reserved disk space is called “MFT Reserved Zone”.

Normally, NTFS prevents writing data other than MFT records to the MFT Reserved Zone. However, when the rest of the disk space is getting low, the MFT Reserved Zone will be used for storing regular files. This may lead to MFT fragmentation.

Since MFT fragmentation degrades hard drive performance by increasing the number of reads required for some files, it is important to keep the MFT Reserved Zone clear of regular files. Disk Defrag 3^beta moves regular data files from the MFT Reserved Zone into the rest of the disk space. This allows NTFS to allocate contiguous space for the MFT and thus to prevent its fragmentation.

Other improvements include a significantly increased defragmentation speed and a redesigned user interface. Navigating through Disk Defrag 3^beta is now even more simple and intuitive.  For instance, we’ve added a handy auto-defrag icon to easily customize and control an automatic defragmentation mode.  Another useful feature I’d like to mention is an ability of Disk Defrag 3^beta to list all the fragmented files after performing disk analysis. You can select one or several of them to see their clusters’ location on the disk.

And we have more good news for our users – with all the improvements we’ve made, Disk Defrag 3^beta still remains absolutely FREE!

You can download the new Disk Defrag 3^beta here.

Working on your computer means that there are several applications and files open, hundreds of processes and services running, not to mention disk activity, RAM and CPU usage, and Internet traffic. It’s very important to be in total control over everything that is going on, especially if you are concerned about computer security.

Of course, you can use the built in Windows Task Manager. However, it displays only a few applications and processes running on your PC. And it doesn’t show Windows services at all, despite the fact that services you never use take up a lot of RAM and can slow down your PC.  Windows Task Manager doesn’t provide any process descriptions, so it can be difficult to understand why those processes are there and what is their functionality.

Auslogics Task Manager is a brand new free Windows Task Manager alternative. It provides comprehensive yet easy to understand information about running applications, processes, and services, as well as disk activity, CPU, RAM and Internet traffic usage.

Not only does it display CPU and RAM usage by all applications and processes, but also by a selected program or process.

Auslogics Task Manager will let you know whether an application or a process is trustworthy or not, thus helping you detect possible security flaws.

Managing Windows services has never been easier. Auslogics Task Manager displays all services running on your computer. You can also view detailed information about each service.

The program is feature rich and has an intuitive interface – that’s why it’s ideal for both novice and experienced users. Auslogics Task Manager will help you manage your computer resources to fit your particular needs. There is also a free portable version of this application. It can be downloaded here.