Protect Your Windows 11 Computer from Online Threats: Top Antivirus Software Options and Recommendations

As we spend more and more time on our computers, protecting our devices from potential threats has become a necessity. I have been using Windows Defender, the built-in antivirus software provided by Microsoft, for a while, but I was concerned that it may not catch all threats. In this blog post, we'll take a look at some of the options available for Windows antivirus software and make some recommendations.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus

Bitdefender is a well-known antivirus software that offers comprehensive protection against malware, viruses, and other online threats. It offers real-time protection, an anti-phishing feature, and a VPN to protect your online privacy. Additionally, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus has a low impact on system performance, making it an excellent choice for those who need an antivirus program that doesn't slow down their computer.

Norton 360 Deluxe

Norton is a popular antivirus software that provides protection against malware, viruses, and other online threats. Norton 360 Deluxe offers real-time protection, anti-phishing, anti-spam features, a VPN, and a password manager. Norton also offers parental controls, making it an excellent choice for families. The program greatly impacts system performance, so it may not be suitable for older computers.

Rumor: Microsoft TV

There are rumors that Microsoft will introduce a video streamer box at CES this year:

http://twitter.com/#!/slashgear/status/22224742257790977

I think that this could be a pretty good product that I would like. I think that this could be something that would help simplify my setup.

Announcement hopes:

Here is what I hope the announcement will be:

• The box will be about the size of a Roku or Apple TV


• It would run a version of Windows that has been stripped to only allow Windows Media Center to run.
  
  
  
  • Windows Media Center already supports Netflix streaming
  
  
  • Windows Media Center plugins would still be allowed to run
  
  
  • This would help prevent software conflicts
  
  
  • The box would automatically update itself from Microsoft's servers
  
  
  
  


• These devices would also be Media Center Extenders
  
  
  
  • This would allow you to buy a few of them for a house, and be able to watch the same content in all rooms.
  
  
  
  


• There would be two SKUs.  One with a hard drive for content, and one that would only stream content from other sources.
  
  
  
  • The SKU with the hard drive would allow the user to store content, and playback from the local hard drive.
  
  
  
  


• These would also support Zune Marketplace to get access to video and audio content (as the Xbox 360 does).


• These devices would also be UPnP AV client.


• These would support USB or UPnP TV tuners, to allow viewing or recording (for the SKU that has the hard drive) of TV content.

Since Microsoft already has the Xbox, this device would need to be cheaper than the existing versions of the Xbox.  I would think that the version without the hard drive would be $100, and the version with the hard drive would be $200.

Pie-in-the-sky hopes:

Windows Support Mode

After spending several hours repairing my wife's grandmother's computer from a trojan infection, I realized that, unless I want to spend more time on support, there needs to be a better solution for helping family members on their computers.

In this case, me wife's Grandmother has several behaviors that increase the likelihood that she will be infected.

1. She installs random software that she downloads from the Internet.


2. She often runs her programs using "Run as Administrator"

I am tempted to remove Windows from these computers, and install Ubuntu, but I think that this would be a steep learning curve for her, and I would still need to set up a way for her to run windows programs (Wine or VMWare)

If I had more time to dedicate to support, I could change her account to a non-Administrator account level.  But then, everytime she wanted to install some softeare, or run a Windows Update that prompts for administrator access, I would have to do that.  Unfortunately, we are local to her, and I don't have the time to manage all of these things remotely.

Windows Home Server user account tips

Over the Thanksgiving break, I helped my grandmother with some things with her computer.  One of the problem is that on one of her new computers, her account name was spelled differently than it was on the Windows Home Server.  This causes her to be prompted for her username and password when she tries to mount the server.

Unfortunately, in Windows, you can change the display name for an account, but you cannot change the username.  In order to fix this, you need to create a new account with the right username, and then copy all of the files to the new home directory.

Since when you create a new account on windows, the control panel doesn't offer the ability to specify the username and display name.  I would recommend that when you create a new account, you create an account and specify the username.  Then after the account is created, change the name to the name you want displayed (This only changes the display name)

Multiple accounts with Live Mesh

I am the tech support person for our family.  For my wife's grandmother, I installed a Windows Home Server in her house.  One of the features of the Windows Home server is that it is a proxy to allow you to RDP into the other computers on the network.  The problem is that this only works for the computers that have the RDP server enabled.  (i.e. Windows Vista Ultimate...)

Windows Live Mesh has a similar feature, but it doesn't have the requirement that the windows installations has its RDP server enabled.  Live Mesh's implementation requires that the Live Mesh client is installed on the computers that you want to access, and the computers that you want to do use to access them.  Once you have the software installed, you need to log into Microsoft's live server on each computer.  Then from any computer signed into a Live Mesh account, you can connect to any other computer also signed into that account.

The problem is that this doesn't really work well with multiple accounts.  For example, I have a Live Mesh account, and normally am logged into it when I log into my Windows account.  When I want to help out family, I need to log out of my account and then log into their account.  Ideally, Microsoft would add the ability for a Live account holder to be able to grant access to another Live account for a particular computer.

Netflix on Windows Media Center

Microsoft just released the ability to stream Netflix movies to Vista Media Center.  This is something that Microsoft had implemented in the New Xbox Experience last year.

These implementations allow you to play videos that are on your Netflix instant queue.  It looks like Microsoft did a more functional implementation for Media Center, than what exists on the Xbox .  In addition to letting you play content that is already on your queue, you can browse the whole library of videos available for streaming.  Also, you can manage both your disc and streaming queues.