This has got to be a first - but I think I'm about to defend Dave. I know you're very tech savvy Jon, so you must know that a virus may have simply got into Dave's email and sent itself to everyone in his address book. It happened a year or so ago to the toni@alvinlee.com address (boy, were people mad at me!). Not that I know that's what happened, but I do know its possible....of course, I didn't get it and unless he purged my email from his address book....

By the way, I use AVG, also a free program, and I think its incredible. It has found viruses and worms that none of the other programs I used ever found. Slows email down a bit while it checks incoming and outgoing, but very worth it.

Now I've seen everything!

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No, we haven't seen everything. As the result of a wager over Dave's announcement that his music industry insider sources said Alvin Lee would NOT be playing anywhere during the time period that Alvin played the UK tour, Dave owes Wagstaff a big public butt-smooch at Bert's Place. When the Coyote puts up and pays up, THEN we will have seen everything!

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I think Buddy Holly daid it best: "That'll be the day"

(This mail will no doubt prompt Dave to write me on my private e-mail, informing me that Buddy Holly did in fact take that quote from an old western, and that Dave is disappointed in me, as he thought I was smarter than that!)

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I am aware of that terrible worm that goes in and send email, the recipient gets an email from a potententially familiar name, then opens it, and then a virus hits.
But .... why give him the benefit of the doubt?
Honestly, just seeing his name made my skin crawl and I really could not send him something directly after seeing that home page and that slimy Red Shirt worn by that child ....

Toni, I don't think you were defending him, but giving a very reasonible, and logical reason why this could have occured. If I receive any email again from him, let us say, that I will never know it, but he will. But ...I would never, ever send anything that would infect another PC. I give the crimne of knowlingly spreading virus attacks, etc a little higher than in seriousness than murder in the first degree.

Toni, I totally agree with you AVG anti-virus.
I think the point you made with AVG and I made with Avant! that their is no financial reason for anyone not to have their PC protected from viruses and that it is essential that email gets checked going in and out. I believe that AVG and Avant! are superior to products like McAfee, Nortan, Panda, etc. Those products I mentioned are pretty much controlled by Microsoft and will discourage users from using any web browser other than Microsoft's Internet Security Pit.

I like to call this growing trend of wonderful open source products, etc as "donationware". The get updated directly from customer feedback, you can communicate directly to the developer and it is important to throw the developers some money from time to time to keep the programmers working. The people like Microsoft and Apple cannot control them.

I also use Firefox to browse with has drastically lowered the amount of garbage that I see for spyware/adware. It is also a lot faster and has so many more options with those user contributed "exstentions" that can make things a lot easier for the user. Especially one who has a lot of "senior moments".

Oh good, techie stuff.

I'm a confirmed Firefox fan and I use Thunderbird for email. We'll have to disagree on AV. I find McAfee far better than the free ones and I'm quite baffled by the Microsoft references.

I also recommend ZoneAlarm as a firewall and yes, there's a free version.

If you want to kill spyware, go for Adaware and Spywareblaster.

That should do for now. Wonder if I'll get commission?

Sorry not to mention Dave but for me he's a nobody.

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Les,

I had a subscription to Mcafee for years.

When I was asked to renew, I asked what I always ask, do you support Firefox and Thunderbird.

The answer was a firm NO. They do strongly recommend Internet Explorer.

I called them later and mentioned to them how their largest customer, Microsoft very publically fired Mcafee as the anti-virus tool for HOTMAIL.

Once again, I was told that they have no intention of ever support Firefox and Thunderbird and strongly recommend using IE.

After using Mcafee, when I first installed avant!, it found a bunch of worms and garbage that McAfee did not find. I was not surprised. They have offshored their support teams so they are not the product they once was.
Last time I looked, they did not check my Thunderbird mail that was going in and out.

I hope they changed.

Les, what would be great, in case of them being pressured into supporting products OTHER than Microsoft is to ask them directly like I have. I firmly told them months ago that I would not renew my subscription because of that.

Also, avant! is not a free product and I did have to register. But what is great is that even thouogh you need to register, that their fee for home, non-commercial users is 0 !!

They have avant! Pro which they do charge for which is targeted to commercial sites as well as networks.

It is a very strong product and I have had considerably less issues since I left McAfee and of course use Internet Explorer and Thunderbird.

It is possible Les that some items you think are being checked are not, or maybe they have changed. !!

I think many of the tools use Active X which is a big giant security hole in Explorer and Firefox will normally block.

Les, please let me know what you find out. I will tell you that for the most part, my primary software is open source software which seems to focus more on functionality, constant enhancements (it is open), and growth instead of friendly front ends which most of the commercial software seems to be the most important feature.
I find this especially true in the muli-media section of the industry. But I do donate to the open source products that I use to keep up the development. (for example, for compressed music format that I listen to on my portable, I use the license free, open source ogg.vorbis which to me sounds a lot fuller than MP3 and certainly a whole lot better than any of the Microsoft "W" formats. Ugh. Everyone also should know that people like the bozos at Apple refuse to support anything but Microsoft's format and MP3 in their overated, inflated yuppie tool, the iPOD. The iRIVER players support many more formats and have a far superior sound output than the Ipod.

Also be very aware of totally free software, which sometimes comes loaded with adware/spyware.