AVG products are running on over 70 million computers worldwide, mainly because of the free AND trustworthy 7.5 edition I believe. However, AVG has always delivered fast, effective security without the performance-sapping overheads of other security suites (Norton), and AVG Internet Security 8.0 continues that tradition.

Now available as a special time limited offer for up to 3 home computers with a 2 years Subscription for less than EUR 96.59 (153 USD)!

This means you can get both your office and home computer fully secured and still be able to provide me with a valid license (hint; finders fee) for less than EUR 50 a year!

Virus Bulletin review, March 2008 [ Source, requires registration ]

The combination of a wide range of features – including some nice innovations – with much improved design and usability, stability, unexceptionable system impact and highly impressive detection, seems like a winning one, and I expect to see AVG continuing to go from strength to strength with this release.

Read more news and press releases.

Alexa.com recently announced that they’ve changed the algorithm that calculates the rank for any given website. This means that rather than basing the rank on data collected from the Alexa toolbar they’re now aggregating data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.

Since its beginning in 1998 Alexa Rankings have become a yardstick by which website popularity is measured. I for one welcome the change as it looks like the new algorithm benefits my rankings It could very well be that European and other non-US websites will see an increase in measured traffic due to the broader data collection.

This marks my first post here on Blogvaria using the new and possibly better admin panel and features in WordPress 2.5. I’m also happy to report that all my plugins seems to work and that my theme handled the upgrade painlessly.

I’ve been running this blog on WordPress 2.2.x for some time now, but after reading several warnings about Technorati (and possibly others) planned index exclusion of vulnerable blogs I’ve decided it’s time to upgrade. After a quick test on localhost I didn’t see any reason not to go ahead.

However, things might break and I would really appreciate feedback in case you discover something out of the ordinary.

More updates will follow I’m sure, and soon a new theme which I will share as always.

Nothing is more annoying than creating that extra style sheet and pieces of code to make your site “viewable” in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. If you still happen to use IE6 you will see a small notice on the top of this page inviting you to visit savethedevelopers.org and upgrade your browser.

The Campaign
Say no to IE 6! Our current campaign focuses on assisting users in upgrading their Internet Explorer 6 web browser. This campaign will result in former IE 6 users having a more enjoyable experience on the web while (hopefully) creating a less stressful and complicated environment for web developers by hastening the retirement of an outdated browser.

I do hope you will give this a try if you’re still surfing with IE6 and it’s in no way meant to be offending, merely a friendly advice. Besides making the job easier on designers and programmers you will also benefit from the following:

• Increased security (phishing filter, family filter etc. )
• Better and faster page rendering (page loading time)
• Better 3rd party plugin support
• Generally a much improved browser experience

Feel free to share your thoughts on this one, I would especially like to hear from all of you (former) IE6 users…

Lately I’ve seen the “Apple Software update” window on my screen rather frequently. It appears that if you’ve installed either Safari, iTunes or Quicktime Apple is trying to push the ones you don’t have installed as well. For those of us happy with other browsers and media players this is starting to get quite annoying.

I know Microsoft’s been doing this for years (try installing Live Messenger and see what happens), but I really don’t like the way things are turning. Imagine downloading Adobe Reader and then get an update option to download all the other products Adobe has to offer (both free and paid).

I assume this is all part of Apple’s marketing strategy. They know a lot of people are using iTunes which is a nice software to sync your iPod. However, this seams to have opened a new door for Apple to force people to download and (hopefully) use their other products, which in the end perhaps would lead to more people converting to a Mac.

To be honest I hate it when the auto-updater gives you options not related to the product you’re using. It’s like Firefox would dump Thunderbird in the same update as Firefox 3. So Apple, please stick with advertising and “normal” marketing, don’t just throw things at people!

What’s your take on this?