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Once the most popular reasons for reinstalling your operating system is that it is often the easiest way to deal with a preponderance of viruses, spyware and other collected nasties that find their way onto your computer. So when reinstalling, it make sense to secure your like-new PC as best as possible. Here are five programs that make that possible.

AntiVirus – AVG Free
The most important security measure you can take on a new computer is protecting against viruses and Trojans. That’s where anti-virus software comes in. AV software, usually, runs in the background of your computer, analyzes new files received via email, downloaded or elsewhere to make sure they are safe. You can also schedule it to check your computer for viruses it may have missed, or manually check whenever you want.
For AV software to be good, it needs to stay up-to-date. For it to be tolerable to the user, it needs to run lightly in the background, and it needs to easily offer the user options to override it when it’s too aggressive, as nearly all anti-virus programs have been reporting too many false positives lately. AVG’s Free version accomplishes all that—and does it for free. Runner ups include NOD32, Kaspersky and BitDefender.

Anti-Spam – SpamBayes
Viruses may be the most dangerous problem possible affecting your computer, but Spam is probably the annoying. According to Akismet, nearly 90% of all email received is Spam. That comes out to 1,000 spam messages per day for an average user. While most of that Spam is trapped on your mail server, more than enough makes it through to your email reader, clogging up your folders, slowing down your email downloads and generally making finding real emails that much more annoying and tedious.

That are plenty of solutions for combating Spam, including the filters built into Microsoft Outlook, but I’m a big fan of SpamBayes. I’ve been using the open-source SpamBayes filter for more than five years now, ignoring newer and flashier filters. Why? Well, for one, it just works. It catches nearly all my Spam, and I get very few false positives. The way it works is also significant; like the name suggests, SpamBayes draws its power by using Bayesian algorithms to determine what is spam and what is ham. Simply stated: SpamBayes learns from you. Every time you tag a message as spam or ham, SpamBayes analyzes the email for clues as to what makes spam and what comprises ham. The more emails you tag, the smarter it gets.
SpamBayes is easily added on to Outlook, other desktop mail applications, webmail or even to your mail server. Set up is a breeze (just tag a few emails and go) and the program is light and fast.

Anti-Spyware – Ad-Aware and SpyBot
If viruses are dangerous and spam is annoying, spyware is the unholy marriage of the two; it slows down your computer, hijacks your home page and—as its name suggests—spies on you. It certainly annoys you, and can be very dangerous, either leaving your PC susceptible to viruses or stealing private data from you. Above all, it is intrusive. And it comes from some unlikely sources: companies you know, love and trust.
But you don’t have to succumb to it. Anti-virus programs like AVG will prevent most spyware programs from lodging on your computer, but there is more you can do. Firstly, read the End User License Agreement (EULA) on every new software program you install. Don’t just blindly click ‘Next’ when installing new programs. Secondly, download the above two programs: Ad-Aware and SpyBot. Both will scan your computer for spyware, adware and malware programs, and offer you the option of removing the programs they find. The free version of Ad-Aware won’t protect your PC in real-time, but you can upgrade to get that feature. SpyBot, which is freeware, includes TeaTime, which provides free real-time protection, including registry monitoring. SpyBot can even replace spyware programs with “dummy programs” so you can still run spyware-dependant programs. Between the two, you can remain completely spyware-free.

Extra Protection – Sandboxie
Even after all that protection, sometimes you need a little bit more. That’s where Sandboxie comes in. Sandboxie is a remarkable (and free) program that protects your PC from everything and anything run on it—by providing a virtual “sandbox” for that program to run it. Within the sandbox, no registry changes can be made and nothing can be installed to your actual PC; nothing bad can happen.

Someone sent you a program they swear is virus-free—and AVG also thinks it’s clean—but you’re still unsure about? Run it in the sandbox. You teenage niece is using your computer and you don’t want her messing anything up? She can browse the internet and work in Sandboxie. Son uses P2P software? No problem when it runs in Sandboxie. Don’t trust Internet Explorer? Set it to always run sandboxed. All downloads need to be approved by you before they can run. Executables run without affecting anything else.
And Sandboxie manages to give you all this protection without slowing down your PC. It runs quietly and unobtrusively in the background, and gives you that extra measure of protection you need.

Yesterday Google co-founder Sergey Brin described the Internet doomsday scenario if Microsoft wins its Yahoo takeover bid. How does Google love thee, Microsoft? Let me count the ways:

Internet innovation? At risk. Antitrust laws? Violated. Internet users? Harmed.

“Unnerving” is how Brin described a Microsoft-Yahoo tie-up according to an AP Report.

Speaking after the Google Lunar X Prize event at the Googleplex, Brin emphasized the need for open standards, Internet diversity and an open OS (operating system). Not surprisingly, Microsoft executives committed to a more open platform yesterday, too.

Brin said, “The Internet has evolved from open standards, having a diversity of companies. And when you start to have companies that control the operating system, control the browsers, they really tie up the top Web sites, and can be used to manipulate stuff in various ways. I think that’s unnerving.”

Brin’s statement elaborates on Google’s official opposition to the merger, first outlined in an official Google blog post by Chief Legal Officer David Drummond: the threat of Internet portal control and limited access to competing products: E-mail, IM, Web services.

Microsoft has rebutted the Google argument that won’t be settled until the Yahoo hostile takeover bid plays out, noting Google has the highest share of searches of any company. The search engine industry question: how long will people care about the lovers’ spat between Google and Microsoft?

Unless you’ve been living in a cave this past week—or at least not reading this blog—you’ve heard about Microsoft’s offer to buy up Yahoo! for $31 a share, for a total of $44.6 billion. John Markoff, of the New York Times, called the moved the “firing the final shot of yesterday’s war”—the war in question being one we all know well: the battle for search advertising.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Buying Yahoo is firing the first futuristic shot in tomorrow’s war; Yahoo! is just the beginning for Microsoft. And the war is not for search advertising space alone; even a combined 34.6% for Microsoft/Yahoo! (assuming no one drops off during the merger) doesn’t compete with Google’s 61% (including its major partners). This deal is about much more.

For one, it is about mobile, one of the last frontiers in which Google’s dominance is still tenuous. Google has spent time and made waves developing the Android mobile operating system, but its mobile offerings are relics compared with the new Yahoo! Go 3.0 and Microsoft’s recently-acquired TellMe service. It’s about emerging ad space, like Facebook—of which Microsoft owns a piece and has a 10-year exclusive advertising deal, beating out a Google bid—and advertising exchanges like Right Media, which was acquired by Yahoo!

Google may have video covered online, as it owns most video streams via its acquisition of YouTube and most video searches via its new integrated search bar and rumors of true frame-by-frame video search being developed. Photos, however, are still fair game, with Yahoo! holding on to more than 2 billion photos via its acquisition of Flickr. Blogging is worth fighting for as well. Blogger.com has been given over to spammers, but Windows Live Spaces and Yahoo! 360 both do well, with 45 million users between the two of them.

Microsoft wants Yahoo! for search, but it recognizes the need to lead in every other emerging online market where advertising dollars can be spent. And that means more acquisitions. And lots more shots fired.

Last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) showcased the first few devices that run Google’s much anticipated Android operating system. In today’s Vertical Challenge column, “Mobile Local Search: A Perfect Storm,” local search expert Michael Boland explains how these are the first physical signs of what will be a major inflection point in the history of [...]

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

• Google Position 6 Smack-Down: Filter, Penalty, or Bunk?
  A creepy “Position 6” Google SERPs punishment pattern has emerged, where pages which should dominate the organic SERPs somehow place at lowly #6.
• SEW Experts: Mobile Local Search: A Perfect Storm
  Last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) showcased the first few devices that run Google’s much anticipated Android operating system.
• SEW Experts: PPC 101 Writing Successful Creatives
  Writing ads for search engine advertising is almost like writing headlines. It requires an ability to distill information into attention-grabbing, character-restricted words.
• SEW Experts: Win the Right Search Marketing Clients - Part 2
  For a search marketing agency, especially one just starting out, choosing the right clients can make or break your business.

Click to read the rest of this post…

Last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) showcased the first few devices that run Google’s much anticipated Android operating system. In today’s Vertical Challenge column, “Mobile Local Search: A Perfect Storm,” local search expert Michael Boland explains how these are the first physical signs of what will be a major inflection point in the history of mobile devices and mobile local search.

Out of the range of Google-related rumors - new data centers, an operating system, world domination - one that hasn’t been mentioned in a while is the Google PC.  That hardly matters, though, because Everex has stepped in with another stand-in: the $399 Cloudbook.
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Allow Microsoft to keeps tabs on your computer through the Windows Feedback Program, and fill out a few surveys, and the company will reward you with one of its software packages.

And if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold.But if you lose, the devil gets your soul.– Charlie Daniels comments on a [...]

Google has taken steps to remove malware websites from its search results, according to a ComputerWorld article released Wednesday.

Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software Distribution Inc released the news Monday that Google had removed more than 40,000 malware sites from its search results. While Google refused to either confirm or deny this, spot checks [...]

A lackluster reception for Windows Vista in the enterprise and some hard work by Linux vendors could be the harbinger of greater Linux adoption on desktops.And here we thought Wal-Mart’s Everex boxes running Linux would have Microsofties reaching for chairs to throw.
Turns out, according to eWeek, that Forrester Research sees Microsoft being threatened where all [...]