The Ultimate Anti-Virus and Security List

The good people of Mashable have composed a very through list of anti-virus, anti-spyware and security tools.

There are many good security tools out there - a lot of them are free. I personally use:

• AVG free as an anti-virus.
• Kerio as a firewall (no, the windows firewall isn't enough).
• Spybot and Hijackthis as anti-spyware. Seems like Spybot has gotten "tired" over the years. Hijackthis is only for those of you who know what they are doing, by the way.
  
• AVG Rootkit removal - for the one (and hopefully the last) time I got hit by a scary rootkit.
• Regmon - for when the shit really hits the fan, and there are no other programs who can help me. Kids, don't try this at home!

The Best Freeware Sites

Good old freeware is always a great thing to find. Especially if it's a really good program, like Taskbar Shuffle and the sort.

Here is a list of some great freeware sites. Remember, if you enjoy a program, consider donating some money to the developer. This way, freeware will remain FREE:

• Snapfiles Freeware Section
• NoNags
• Grandfiles
  
• TechSupport - freeware utility list
• eConsultant Freeware list
• Freewarebox
• Best Freeware
• Freeware Guide
• A list of 300 freeware programs

Enjoy!

What are the Top Blogs of the Net, Really?

Now there's a question for you - what are the top blogs on the net?

TechCrunch published an interesting list - the top blogs and news sites on Google Reader. According to the data there, BBC, Google News and ESPN are the top three sites. I was surprised for a second there, to see Google News so high up. After all, it's not a very efficient news service, and the information there isn't very helpful. Then again, it might be a default choice that a lot of people just didn't bother to remove - exactly the same as the MSN homepage in every IE.

When you look at Technorati's list, there are no "official" news sites - only blogs. According to Technorati, the leading blogs are Engadget, Gizmodo, and Boing Boing.

Bloglines' most popular feeds show a different picture altogether. eBizMBA gives another ranking (for August 2007). You can't trust data from Alexa, naturally, so that leaves us with a lot of nothing.

Popularity contests can be won in many ways. There are different ways to look at data, and many times it's twisted to the favor of the one presenting the data. These lists are interesting gimmicks - but nothing more - and they shouldn't be taken too seriously.