Have you just installed/reinstalled Xp, Vista or Windows 7? Need to install programs but don’t want to sit there manually installing them? Then try Ninite Easy PC Setup. Ninite makes installing multiple applications simple. You just go to their site, select the applications you want to install and then click Get Installer at the bottom. It will then download a small program which you will need to run as administrator so it can install the programs. The installer then downloads the install packages for your chosen programs and silently installs them. You can even suggest other programs for them to add to their list. They promise they only install the chosen program and not any of the rubbish a lot of the program installers try to add such as toolbars.

“We install apps with default settings and say “no” to browser toolbars and other junk.”

So basically you
1 – Go to the Ninite Easy PC Setup site.
2 – Select the programs you want to install.
3 – Download their installer.
4 – Run the installr as administrator.
5 – Go do something less boring whilst their installer does all the work for you.

Just to add you will need cookies enabled to be able to download the instaler.

Now we get to the main reason I swiftly uninstalled it. I downloaded the Eicar test file which is a standard file that all antivirus programs recognise as a test file so you can test if your antivirus is working or not. So I put the eicar.com file on my desktop and ran it. Rising Antivirus did absolutely nothing. I can accept it not detecting it during the download because my favourite free antivirus, AntiVir, only scans files when they are opened or read. To not detect the test file when run makes me wonder what else it doesn’t detect. I told it to scan the eicar.com file and it alerted me that it was a virus (well a test file which is what it should report it as) but not even a beep from Rising Antivirus when I run the file. In fact I had to turn Rising’s detection level up to high to get it to report it as a virus when I opened it. Even then I could see the command window in the background that eicar.com opens so I’m not even sure that if it had been a virus Rising Antivirus would of stopped it doing anything.

So my advice is avoid this anti virus like the plague. The best free anti virus, in my opinion, is AntiVir and the next best free one is Avast. I can no longer even recommend AVG as third place because all reports say as of version 8 AVG has become a resource hog that slows your computer down.

And then there are the companies who’s adverts offer to let you download Spybot for free. Errr SpyBot IS FREE!!! Just go to the official Spybot site at safer-networking.org and download it for free. The sites that post these adverts expect you to sign up to them which is not free and therefore their adverts, in my opinion, are illegal in most countries.

I’m more and more tempted to stop using Adsense if only I could find an affiliate company with some kind of ethics.

You can see my list of blocked domains after the break.

My blocked domains:
2009softwarereviews.com
activexfixer.org
adwarealert.com
cleanupurpc.com
free-software-uk.com
ie-internet-explorer.com
internet-explorer-cleaner.com
pc-authority.com
pcregistryrelief.com
pctuneuptips.com
registrycleanercompared.com
registrycleanercompared.org
registrycleanerhelp.org
registrycleanersexposed.com
search-destroy2009.com
spy-destroyer.com
spybot.search-destroy2009.com
spybotdownload.org
stop-sign.com
stopzilla.com
virusprotectioncompared.org
which-registry.com
zaperrors.com

On a different note Apple has announced it is releasing it’s Safari web browser for windows. It is currently in beta and is available from apple.com/safari.