The Vault

Microsoft’s own product testing guidelines seem at the same time the major problem why so many Microsoft products leak to the Internet. We have seen numerous Windows 7 builds hit the web only days after they have been build by Microsoft. The latest product to leak was codenamed Morro and renamed Microsoft Security Essentials in the last days. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free antivirus program and not a security suite. Microsoft is offering other products like the Windows Firewall, Windows Defender or Windows backup for that.

The security software requires a genuine Windows operating system which is checked during installation. The leak is available for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 and can be downloaded from various P2P networks already.

Microsoft Security Essentials comes with a basic interface that can be used to scan the computer system for malicious software. Options are available to run a scheduled scan and exclude files, filetypes and processes from the scan. It is yet unclear as to how effective the security software is. It will probably take some time until the first comparisons are published.

Microsoft Security Essentials is loading two processes into computer memory after execution. The first is called msseces.exe and uses roughly 8 Megabytes of computer memory, the second on the other hand – called MsMpEng.exe – uses 40 Megabytes by default which can rise to 60 when it becomes active.

Features:
- Real-time protection. Microsoft Security Essentials uses real-time protection to help address potential threats before they ever have an opportunity to become a problem.

- Dynamic Signature Service. In addition to taking advantage of daily signature downloads, Microsoft Security Essentials is able to validate suspicious files against newly identified malware in near-real time by querying the Dynamic Signature Service. Actions from unknown sources such as unexpected network connections, attempting to modify privileged parts of the system or downloading known malicious content all trigger requests for updates from the Dynamic Signature Service.

- Rootkit protection. Microsoft Security Essentials includes a number of new and improved technologies to provide additional defense against rootkits and other aggressive threats. These technologies include live kernel behavior monitoring for monitoring the integrity of kernel structures, support for direct file-system parsing to help identify and remove malicious programs and drivers hidden from the file system, and improved live rootkit removal that dynamically loads a new kernel mode driver as part of the cleaning process so that it can help successfully remove some of the more advanced rootkits.

- Lightweight design. Because Microsoft Security Essentials is core anti-malware only, it doesn’t carry the weight of the suite products and has a much smaller download size.

- CPU throttling. CPU throttling helps ensure that the user’s system remains responsive to those tasks the user is likely to be performing such as opening files or browser windows, launching programs, editing documents, saving files, etc.

- Idle-time scanning. Scans and updates are scheduled to run when the PC is idle and use a low-priority thread.

- Smart caching and active memory swapping. Signatures not in use don’t take up space in the available memory, making Microsoft Security Essentials friendlier toward older PCs as well as today’s smaller, less powerful form factors.

Download: Microsoft Security Essentials

Instructions:
- You need genuine Windows, as a Windows Genuine Validity check is done during the installation
- Remove any antivirus you already have
- Open the zip file
- Use mssefullinstall-x86fre-en-us-vista1.0.exe for Windows Vista or Windows 7 (32 bit)
- Use mssefullinstall-amd64fre-en-us-vista1.0.exe for Windows Vista 64 bit
- Use mssefullinstall-x86fre-en-us-xp1.0.exe for Windows XP.

After Apple made such bold claims about Safari 4 during their WWDC keynote last week, it was only a matter of time until another browser company came along and claimed to “reinvent the web”. Opera have done just that with Opera Unite, a cloud-based system integrated with the company’s browser, that synchronizes all your files, music and photos, which you can access through any web browser across the globe. It bridges the gap between a client and a server by turning a computer into both, without the need for third-party servers.

The free Opera Unite service gives you a unique URL which you can use to access files as well as stream music and view photo galleries. There’s also an IM chat service, called Lounge, which has its own private address which you can share with friends and family. The online interface allows you to make certain folders and files public.

That’s all available through any browser; if your friends or colleagues are also using Opera Unite, you’re able to post virtual notes on their systems.  Opera Unite can also work as a mini server, offering up content from your home PC, Mac or Linux/Unix system.

How to set up: Install Opera or download the Opera Unite build for Windows, Mac or Linux/Unix. Log in with your Opera ID, located on the left-hand corner of the browser. Once all set, you can access your services from the Opera Unite panel of the browser. You can also install new services.

If you read over our guide on turning spare thumb drives into feature packed giveaway drives and you wished there was a huge pack of portable software you could just download, this is it. While we didn't put this package together—you can check out our favorite software picks in the thumb drive guide mentioned above or check out the Lifehacker Pack 2009—but it serves the same purpose and has many of the applications we recommended and then some. LiberKey is a portable software package with an accompanying menu that includes hundreds of portable apps like ImgBurn, UnderCoverXP, TeraCopy, GIMP, Google Chrome, Revo Uninstaller etc. Features:

• Updates are made regularly (History). Updates of the main LiberKey software can be downloaded directly via Internet.
• You can temporarily associate files extensions (.avi, .jpg, .doc, etc.) with LiberKey software. Wherever you are, you may launch any file whether from your desktop or from a directory or an email attachment.
• Thanks to compression techniques, the launching of the applications on slow peripherals (such as USB key) was accelerated. It also allowed to optimize the installed size.
• Installation is completely automated and the LiberKey menu is extremely user friendly. All the applications are neatly divided into categories with sub-categories distinguishing their uses. You get everything you want for your flash drive in one click.

You can download LiberKey in three flavors, Basic (20 applications, 56MB setup, 179MB installed), Standard (106 applications, 144MB setup, 410MB installed), and Ultimate (202 applications, 197MB setup, 575MB installed). The installers are setup as all or nothing installations, you can't pick through the list of software and selectively exclude things.

In addition to all the software included in the three versions of Liberkey they maintain a huge list of portable software available here. The software on the list is flagged to indicate if it is included in the Basic, Standard, or Ultimate package but there are many portable applications that aren't included in the installation but are included in their master list for you to download. The list is an excellent resource for finding additional portable software to add to your flash drive toolkit.

The jukebox in the sky is a reality. When I started this blog two years ago, it was all but impossible to open a Web browser, type a song name, and have that song start playing immediately. Now, it's commonplace.

I still like the simple approach of Grooveshark--the other night, my brother and I set up a running DJ battle on it to reminisce and introduce each other to new tunes--but Meuzer is an interesting alternative. Search on a song or artist name, and Meuzer pulls results from YouTube--very similar to the Muziic app I looked at earlier this year--as well as Imeem and other third-party sources. Click any of the results, and you get a four-arrow widget that lets you play, share, rate, or add the song to a playlist. Hit "play," and the song begins playing in an embedded window depending on the original source (a YouTube result begins playing a small YouTube video, for instance). Other features require you to log in, and currently the only way to do that is with a Facebook ID.

Meuzer seems to have a broader selection of music than Grooveshark: a search on Roy Harper's "The Game"--a song I couldn't find on Grooveshark for the DJ battle with my brother--got several results from YouTube. But I don't like the forced log-in, particularly for the essential playlist feature, and the search results aren't organized nearly as well. For instance, searching for the dub artist Scientist returned multiple results for "The Scientist" by Coldplay (eww) but no Scientist. On Grooveshark, I simply selected the Artists tab and the top 10 results were all Scientist tunes. Still, Meuzer could be a useful fallback for songs I can't find on other services. Try it out yourself: Search Meuzer.

If your primary browser is Google Chrome, chances are you’ll have plenty of bookmarks saved in the browser and you probably want to back them up for obvious purposes. Backing up bookmarks in Google Chrome is pretty easy. Let’s explore the methods that can be used to backup bookmarks in Chrome:

#1. Backup Chrome bookmarks using the bookmark manager

You can use the bookmark manager in Google Chrome to backup your saved sites as an .html file. All you need to do is hit Ctrl + Shift + B when you’re in Google Chrome and a bookmark manager will pop up. Go to ‘Tools’ > ‘Export Bookmarks’ and specify a location where the bookmarks backup file should be stored.

#2. Backup Chrome bookmarks and restore them in another browser

Transmute (the ultimate bookmark converter from Darq Software) can be used to backup bookmarks from Google Chrome and restore them to another browser in a matter of seconds. Launch the program and specify the source as Chrome and the target browser where your bookmarks should be restored and hit ‘Start’ for the process to begin.

#3. Backup your entire Chrome profile

Google Chrome Backup is a neat little app that backs up your Google Chrome profile that contains your modified settings and preferences. The profile also includes your bookmarks and browsing history. In case you’re doing a reinstall of Google Chrome, make sure you backup your profile using this application. Download here.

Several torrent applications such as uTorrent provide access to a torrent search that originates in the client software. Most launch the search on a website in the default web browser instead of displaying the search results in their own interface. TorrentFetcher, a desktop Torrent search engine, offers torrent search capabilities right from its interface. Everything that is connected to the search is handled in the software program.

The user needs to enter a search term and can optionally select a category, change the number of results and the download directory for the torrents. The interface will then be populated by search results after a short time. It will list the title, seeders, peers, the size and date of each torrent that has been found during the search.

A double-click on any search result will automatically download that torrent to the directory specified in the header of the torrent search engine. It should be noted that TorrentFetcher will not download the contents the torrent is linking but only the torrent itself. This means that it has to be used in conjunction with torrent clients that automatically monitor a directory for torrents and begin downloading the files automatically after finding a new torrent file in that directory.

The software developer does not reveal the torrent search engine that is used to populate the results. An option to reveal that information and probably even exchange that torrent search engine with another one would come in really handy. The search in its current stage seems to be concentrating on English torrents. It would also be nice if the results could be sorted by clicking on a column so that the search results could be sorted by date for example.

Windows Live Messenger 2009 Final (build 14.0.8064.0206) is the successor to the previously released version 14.0.8050.1202, but there was no full/standalone installer available for the new build. Users who wanted to download it had to rely on the Windows Live Essentials web installer. If you were looking for an offline installer for Live Messenger, we have some good news.

The offline installer will be useful for people who have multiple computers, limited bandwidth internet connections, unstable internet connections etc. The idea is to download the entire setup file to hard disk and then use it to install on any number of computers whenever, wherever you like.

By the way Microsoft have again refrained from releasing a changelog for this latest update – there is no official word on what has been changed/fixed/improved in build 14.0.8064.0206. I could not find any notable changes between the two versions but upgrading to the latest available build of WLM is highly recommended.

So far I’ve not been able to find a direct download link to the Standalone/Offline installer on Microsoft download center. However, I managed to find one on Softpedia which is just as reliable: [Click Here] to download Windows Live Messenger 2009 Final build 14.0.8064.0206 Standalone/Offline/Redistributable installer.

Yesterday's introduction of Chrome version 2.0.172.28 was touted by Google as being up to 30 percent faster for handling JavaScript. After using the update to the stable release extensively for the past day and running it through two JavaScript tests on two computers, it's conclusively faster than the previous stable version of Chrome. The latest Chrome developer preview, includes a significant new component to the V8 engine.

The Google Chrome team has announced a new version of the open-source browser, touting up to 30 percent performance increases on JavaScript-heavy tasks. I’ve taken it for a spin, comparing it to Firefox 3.5 Beta 4, which also has very fast JavaScript performance thanks to its TraceMonkey technology. The new version of Chrome does indeed work faster than the Firefox beta at this point, and the performance is another way that Google’s browser is maturing and innovating.

Google is putting its money where its mouth is on the performance increases in the new Chrome. If you go to this web page, it will automatically start running a series of seven separate JavaScript-centric browser benchmark tests. You can paste the same URL into Firefox or another browser, and compare the result to that of Chrome. I got significantly higher numbers (higher is better) on all the tests with the new version of Chrome, as compared to Firefox 3.5 Beta 4.

The performance increases in Chrome come from an update to its V8 JavaScript engine, as well as a new version of the open-source WebKit rendering engine. It’s worth noting that Firefox 3.5 will be coming out in a Release Candidate version in early June, with the final version due shortly after that. The final version may outperform Chrome in JavaScript tasks, as both Mozilla and Google are targeting improvements there. As far as the latest beta of Firefox goes, though, Chrome performs faster. It also continues to have the advantage of running tasks within tabs as separate applications, which means far fewer browser crashes. However, Chrome does not yet have anywhere near the ecosystem of useful extensions that Firefox has.

You can download the new version of Chrome here. If you’re already running Chrome, you’ll automatically be updated to the new version.

Actual results will vary based on your hardware and other program running simultaneously, but it's irrefutable that the new version of Chrome, with its updates to the WebKit rendering engine and Google's V8 JavaScript engine, is significantly faster than its predecessor.

Also new in this version of Chrome is the F11 hot key to toggle full screen mode, which drops all hints of the browser frame except for the scroll bars--but only if they're appearing on that site in standard mode. There's also a new form autofill under Options in the Tools menu, and users can selectively remove thumbnails from the New Tab landing page.

Back up offline POP3 email archives to an online email service is fairly easy when you're using Outlook Express. First you will need an Hotmail account, if you don't yet have one, sign up for free. After that download and use Windows Live Mail to use with that Hotmail account. This process is complete straight forward.

Windows Live Mail connects to your Hotmail account via synchronization, which means all the emails you have downloaded to your computer will remain at Hotmail server and available for you to view using a Web browser. Apart from email accounts that end with hotmail.com and live.com, Windows Mail Live can also handle other types of accounts including POP3. When you have multiple email account with Windows Mail Live, each account will have its own separate set of "Inbox", "Sent Items", "Draft" etc.

Say if you want to upload an existing Outlook Express email archive to your Hotmail account, first run Windows Live Mail then import Outlook Express messages. (To do this just press Alt+F then choose "Import" on the menu). Once the import process is done, create a new folder within your Hotmail account and name it, say, "POP3 Backup". You can create different folders for different group of of emails. After that you can drag and drop or copy messages from the POP3 imported account into these new folders.

Now all you need to do is sync the Hotmail account and voila! You will see those added folders and email you've just dragged over on the Hotmail server. This means you can access them whenever you are via a browser and they are now saved in Hotmail server. The sync process can take a long time if you have a big POP3 archive, and course you can't sync any archive bigger than the space allowed by Hotmail, which is 5GB. Once you have gotten those emails up to a Hotmail account, you can always import them into Gmail by using the new migration tool.

Google Docs has been around since 2006, offering a powerful and free alternative to Microsoft’s dominant productivity suite. But for many people, it remains something of a novelty - it’s there, but they don’t use it regularly. This is in part because of the inherent security issues with Cloud-based services, which make businesses hesitant to upload their confidential files.

OffiSync, a new plugin for Microsoft Office, is looking to change that. The application, which supports Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents, is launching in a private beta (you can request an invite from its homepage), with support for Office 2003 and 2007 on Windows. Mac users are out of luck for the time being. Alongside basic file syncing, OffiSync also integrates a number of features from Google Docs to actually improve Office. One of these is integrated Google search, which allows you to search through all of your Google Docs files directly from your Office toolbar.

The service also has support for Google Docs collaboration, though it isn’t as complete as I’d like. Using OffiSync, multiple people can edit the same file without having to worry about overwriting each other’s changes. But if you want to see real-time edits (which is one of the more powerful features of Google Docs), you’ll have to use the browser-based interface. Founder Oudi Antebi says that real time edits are in the works, and will be included in an update over the summer.

Napster unveiled a redesigned music service Monday, post Best Buy-acquisition, with a new subscription offering that may raise a few eyebrows.

For $5 per month, users can download and keep any five DRM-free MP3 tracks from Napster's catalog of more than seven million songs. So far, no big deal; that's the same as what Apple charges for many DRM-free AAC files, and slightly more than many singles from Amazon MP3. It's also reminiscent of eMusic's monthly MP3 download service. But here's where it gets interesting: as part of that fee, you also get unlimited streaming of all seven million tracks, for listening as often as you like.

There are a few strings attached that Napster isn't calling attention to: namely, that those tracks are DRM'ed unlike the MP3 downloads, and that you can only listen to those tracks on your desktop PC. You can't move them to a portable device (a la Napster To Go, which is still available and which costs more, or Napster Mobile--although you may want to skip that last one, given our experience with it).

Essentially, Napster is throwing in unlimited full song previews instead of 30-second clips. That even exceeds Lala's 10-cent-per-song offering for desktop PCs as well (which lets you listen to any song once, but then pay 10 cents and get unlimited listening). Napster is also offering more than 60 commercial-free radio stations, 1,400 programmed theme-based playlists, and an automix "seed" feature that creates a custom, Internet radio-style channel.

Spotify, already the best music app on the planet, is coming to a device near you. We’re talking XBoxes, PlayStations, Slingbox, mobile phones, networked audio players, SlimDevices — any place developers want to put it.

The release Tuesday night of libspotify, the company’s Application Programming Interface, means that the sky is the limit: Any developer (for approved devices) can build apps that access Spotify’s massive music catalog and use its P2P architecture, which streams Ogg Vorbis files between users like a streaming version of BitTorrent.

The bad news: It’s still not legally available in the United States and lots of other places, though there are ways to fake being in another country. In fact, this is great news at the moment only for music lovers in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. But those who have tried Spotify know it’s like a magical version of iTunes in which you’ve already bought every song in the world — and it’s free to use if you can put up with a 20-second ad every half an hour.

"With the release of libspotify, we hope to empower our users to build upon what we’ve started and come up with imaginative and innovative new ways of interacting with Spotify," reads the blog post announcing the program. "There are hundreds of features that users have suggested to add to Spotify and by taking this step, we hope to encourage the developer community to expand our service." (Developers should note that the API key cannot be shared, so resulting programs can’t be open source.)

As a journalist and beta tester, I’ve had access to Spotify for months, and my valid Spotify username should mean I’ll be able to use whatever programs result from this API. However, anyone who can’t use Spotify will also not be able to use apps developed with the API. According to a line in the agreement, "You may not make the API, Service or Content available to any person who is not a user having valid login credentials for the Service issued by Spotify."

Hopefully, for the sake of U.S. music fans, this delay in rolling out the service stateside is a mere matter of getting ducks in a row, rather than another frustrating instance of the music industry dragging its heels on new technology. Otherwise, Spotify could be available on videogame consoles in Europe before it’s even available on computers in the states.

Many users tend to set their Windows XP Automatic Updates on so that the OS will routinely check the Windows Updates Web site for new high-priority Windows security patches, critical updates, hot fixes, service packs, etc. to protect the computer from the latest security threats. Leaving the Automatic Updates feature in activated mode is convenient for users so that the updates can be done automatically. However, many users with updates installed sometimes might have software compatibility or other random technical problems. If this happens, the easiest way to resolve it is to remove the newly installed updates and revert the system to its prior state. To remove the updates installed, users can go to control panel and use the remove program feature to remove/uninstall the newly installed file. Alternately, a free tiny utility, Windows XP Update Remover, will be useful.

Windows XP Update Remover is a free Windows application which allows users to quickly and completely remove or uninstall the updates installed in the computer. Windows XP Update remover will remove $NtUninstall backup folders and associated uninstalled information from the computer. Users can download the free Windows XP Update Remover via the link here. Once the program is installed, users will see a complete list of Windows updates installed in the computer. Users can thence choose the updates to be removed.

With threats like Conficker fresh in the public's mind, security remains a top concern for Windows users. Panda Security, publishers of Panda Internet Security and Panda Antivirus, is set to take antivirus where it hasn't been yet: into the clouds. Panda Cloud Antivirus beta bets that nearly three years of development can pay off into a better protection system for users. To that end, Panda's willing to make the client free for personal use--even after it leaves beta testing.

The program uses Panda's proprietary cloud computing technology, which they call Collective Intelligence, to detect viruses, malware, rootkits, and heuristics. It takes advantage of "millions of users," according to Panda, to identify new malware almost in real time. Panda says that Collective Intelligence can classify new malware in under six minutes, and that it handles more than 50,000 new samples per day. The Cloud Antivirus works by classifying threats into executables that must be scanned immediately, and non-executables that are checked at a lower priority--usually when the computer is idle.

In exchange for using consumer data to build the Collective Intelligence database, Panda decided to offer the Panda Cloud Antivirus for free, said Pedro Bustamante, senior research adviser at Panda Security.

The new program reportedly takes up around 50 MB on the hard drive and eats around 17 MB of RAM when in use. That compares well against the industry average that Panda provided of 60 MB, and Bustamante said that they're aiming for 12 MB of RAM when in use.

Cloud computing may make sense from a system resources point of view, but what happens to system security when the computer isn't connected to the Internet? "The model we've implemented is to break down the traditional antivirus to client and server, so when the user is not connected they keep a local cache copy of Collective Intelligence, including detections for what Collective Intelligence sees is spreading through the community," he said.

Panda Cloud Antivirus is for Windows XP and Windows Vista, with planned support for Windows 7 when it's released. Bustamante added that it will stay in beta as it's being accepted by users, although they hope it will leave beta by the end of this summer (Originally posted at The Download Blog).

So called lite applications try to bring down the storage requirements and resource usage of bloatware to increase performance by removing components and features that are not needed by the majority of users. Well known examples for lite applications are Nero Lite, Adobe Reader Lite, Skype 4 or Windows Live Messenger.

What are the benefits of this installation method? The application will noticeable startup faster and overall performance during usage is increased. You can download custom installers at the Custom Installers homepage (Tip: choose switchless for avoiding the microsoft installer crap). BTW: Never mind the bollocks.