defender

ZombieSmash represents the current apotheosis of enemy-flicking castle-defense games. Your rural home is your castle, and the foes to be flicked are a ravening variety of the undead.

ZombieSmash mixes up the castle-defense format slightly, with a central house that you alternately have to defend from the left, right, and both sides, using both thumbs as your on-screen perspective shifts for each incoming wave. Your primary task is served well by the game's great visuals and sound effects: you can touch and flick (or drag and slam) zombies to kill them, watching them fly with rag-doll physics and erupt … Read more

A number of BitDefender users, whose 64-bit Windows systems stopped working or were unable to be rebooted after security program updates, vented their frustration by flooding the antivirus vendor's forum pages over the weekend.

According to an IDG report, users on forum boards started signaling the problem on Saturday evening. The complainants said several Windows files, as well as the security vendor's own program files, were identified as "Trojan.FakeAlert.5" malware after they performed an update for their BitDefender antivirus programs.

In an e-mail update Monday to ZDNet Asia, Vitor Souza, BitDefender's global communications … Read more

BitDefender Senior Researcher Alexandru Catalin Cosoi has nothing against using the Web to find your special someone. However, he does warn that there are sites out there that appear to be dating sites but are instead run by criminals who are out to steal your information and, perhaps, your identity.

And even if you wind up on a legitimate site, he says, there is still the risk of someone posing as a potential love interest and asking questions that could provide them with just enough information to get you into a situation that you're not going to love.

BitDefender … Read more

AntiVirus Defender scans computers for viruses and unwanted applications. You can choose a fast scan for a quick checkup or a full scan to thoroughly check your computer. AntiVirus Defender will also check your computer's memory for problems, and it can even detect broken executable files.

This program's colorful interface has big, easy-to-read icons. There's a Help button that leads you to the program's Web site where there are step-by-step instructions illustrated with screenshots that should help even the most novice of users. Being able to choose between fast scan and full scan is a common … Read more

Among the viruses, worms, Trojans, and other nasty things lurking on the Internet are keyloggers, pernicious little bits of code that record everything you type. Whether you're trying to protect passwords and credit card numbers or the contents of sensitive e-mails, CoDefender is a welcome weapon in the Web security arsenal.

The premise behind CoDefender is simple; it encrypts and scrambles everything you type, leaving keyloggers with a bunch of gibberish instead of a record of your keyboard use. Although the program foils the attempts of keyloggers, it doesn't interfere at all with what you're actually typing; … Read more

Apple's Safari comes loaded on everyone's Mac and the latest Safari update is a huge improvement on an already solid browser, but that doesn't mean it's the right browser for everyone. Mozilla Firefox, the most popular alternative browser, just received an update, too, and Firefox fans should definitely download it to fix security issues.

Already have your browser of choice squared away? We also have the latest update for Cocktail, the software that's loaded with Mac maintenance tools and interface tweaks to get your Mac running the way you want. Our game this week is … Read more

For a lot of home users, staying protected online is complicated, especially when they have multiple computers and networking devices (and who doesn't, nowadays?). Installing and keeping security software properly updated can be a daunting task.

Cisco now makes it simpler by integrating Internet security inside its Linksys by Cisco Wireless-N routers. This means you won't even have to install a separate online security suite on each computer within the home network anymore.

The company announced Tuesday its collaboration with Trend Micro to introduce the Home Network Defender (HND), a multi-layered software security solution that helps provide network protection home-network devices including PCs, online game consoles, Wi-Fi enabled phones, and personal media players.… Read more