Secure your computer by using these easy steps

Ok, I found yet another article about protecting your computer against spyware, malware, viruses, trojans, and their brethren. But the good thing about this article is that a lot of the steps are really easy to follow, and include using a Website that will check all your email attachments for you. This service allegedly checks any file you upload to it with 10 different anti-malware engines, including those from Symantec, McAfee and the like. Based on what each of these engines thought about the file, you can decide whether you want to download that file or not. It also has a nice little uploader program that you can install on your computer to facilitate a simple right-click to send the files to the Website. The article further talks about a behavior-based method for malware identification, and a stunning revelation that apparently a cracker recently stole a webmail login information and emailed the friends of the victim asking them for money!! Now you certainly don’t want happening to you and your friends, do you? Lesson learned – use strong passwords – the types that only you can remember – and change them often. Crooks are out there to get you – don’t be under any false sense of security. The battle against crackers is raging and it always will.

Apple iPhone has a remote kill switch?

According to this news story, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has confirmed that the new Apple iPhone 3G has a remote switch, which can be used to remove software from the phones of the customers. He says it is meant for cases where we might need to protect users’ data, when a malicious program is released that steals the information from the phones worldwide… personally, though, I don’t really like how much power this gives to Apple, and how little the average user can control.  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Are university ISPs faster than FiOS?

I am confused.

Everybody is singing praises of FiOS these days… however, at my university, I just did a speedtest.net test, and it shows a 35,000 Kbps download speed. That’s 35 Mbps, right? Now Verizon FiOS speeds are only 10 Mbps, 20 Mbps etc etc… how can that be? How can FiOS be slower? Are the university ISP’s always faster than residential lines?

Yet stranger is the fact that, I distinctly remember, my Charter cable at my older apartment (part of the rent, ethernet LAN) clocked 40,000 Kbps one night. What’s going on?

When I looked at Charter’s website, it says its high speed (max) Internet goes up to 16 Mbps (16,000 kbps). Then how on earth did it clock 40,000 that night? I also used to download Linux distros at 3000 KBps (24,000 Kbps) there.

Thirdly, I understand that, since the US is so big, it is hard to run cable in rural / wild areas and so the average Internet speed is lower here compared to that in Europe and Japan – which are much smaller and hence much easier to manage. America is huge with a lot of diversity and therefore bringing the national average to the top is next to impossible.

However, I hear that even the fastest Internet connection in America is not as fast as the fastest ones in Europe/ Japan? I don’t believe it is true – it doesn’t make any sense! America started commercial Internet – it all began here! Is it true that European countries have faster Internet? If yes, what’s the reason for this? I come from a place where the Internet was always slow, and to me the Internet in America appeared to be from out of this world – but now I hear it is not the best?

Why, according to Speedtest.net, is the Internet in such remote countries like Romania, Lithuania and Latvia soooo fast?

From what I feel, my conclusions are
(1) University ISPs are for some reason always much faster than what is available for commercial / residential consumption
(2) American Internet connections are amongst the best in the world, it’s just that some states are lagging behind because of geographical/ other reasons, and also because the country is so big and the population much larger compared to those tiny European countries or Japan, and therefore the national average is low
(3) We should take newspaper/ article headlines with a pinch of salt. A headline saying “American Internet behind that of other nations” would make you feel like we are the worst in the world, but when you read the article you realize we are still amongst top 10 out of 200 countries in the world. Stupid newspaper headlines. What are they thinking?
(4) People are often naïve and easily misled. Someone at this Website writes, “The whole of America is put to shame when you consider its fastest connection in Rhode Island strolls in at a very pedestrian 5 megabits” – how much more naïve can you get? This person does not realize that 5 is the AVERAGE and not the fastest. You can get a 50 Mbps download connection from Verizon FiOS any day. And did I mention my university’s download speed of 35 Mbps?

Thoughts/ remarks?