Comodo HIPS and Firewall Leak Test Suite Review

Security a foreign language?

Note: I hesitate to even review this since Comodo has shown itself to be not a very good company lately.

Leak tests are vulnerability tests that allow you to check your computer for possible security holes and potential problems.  Unfortunately Comodo's program gives no information about what security elements you are vulnerable to.  You are vulnerable to a whole series of security problems that SOUND important or you're not.  There's no information about how to block those, work-arounds for them, or how dangerous they are.  This feels like a beta product or some type of subtle marketing tool to try and get people to use Comodo's firewall that, apart from the company that makes it, I really like.

Finally this program is from 2008 and while I'm going to guess that Windows XP security hasn't changed dramatically in the past two years and most of the information is current, I would probably trust something more up to date.

There's not much more to add as this program doesn't do anything else.





Download:

• Portablefreeware's listing
  

Version: 1.00
Size:  0.3 megs
License: Freeware
Score: 2 out of 10 - Exclusively for security professionals or someone looking to learn more about Windows security.
In Kitchen Sink Collection: No

RadioSure Portable vs. Screamer Portable

Two excellent internet music programs with a lot in common so it didn't make sense to just review them.  Instead, a look at which one is better.
 
Features they share: 

• Seem to play all the major formats (mp3, ogg, aac, and wma)
  
• Can save favorites easily
• Will record radio stations

• In MP3 (WMA and AAC stations will be converted to MP3)
• In high quality formats (tested up to 256)
  
• Into individual files named for the song titles in a subdirectory named for the channel.  This is great to find an artist you really love, one of the best parts about the Pandora service.
• With commercials, but named something obvious so you can delete them.

• Have a small window with most settings and components in the menus.
• Are not up to date.  Have a lot of stations in its presets that don't work anymore.
• Don't support PLS files, used by most Internet radio stations.

RadioSure
 

 


Good:

• Channel organization is searchable.  If you leave the search box empty, it shows all channels.  If you type just a few characters, it filters all channels instantly.
• Records audio to an automatic bitrate setting.  Good if you're listening to MP3 stations.
• Skinnable. 
  

Bad:

• Default peak meter is visually loud, haven't tried the skins available for it to see if makes it less noticeable.
• Its in the "good section" but this records audio to an automatic bitrate setting.  If you listen to non-MP3 stations, will result in a quality decrease.  For example, a 64-bit WMA station recorded at 64-bit MP3 will sound flat and dull.  It needs to be manually set to a higher setting (at least 128 in this case).  This is still better than Screamer, which has no automatic function at all.

Screamer 

Good:

• Records directly to Ogg Vorbis (oddly, RadioSure does not despite being an open protocol).
• Channels by a variety of categories - genre, region, and language, followed by genres of music, talk, etc.
• Prefer its interface -- not as visually loud.
• Can change the colors of the peak meter as well as just disable it.
  

Bad:

• Latest version claims to download the latest radio stations but still going through its lengthy menu system to reach a channel several times before finding a live station. Very annoying.
• Have to set the quality meter yourself.  By default its 128, which is fine for most normal recordings but higher quality will be reduced and lower quality will produce bigger file sizes.
• Record button not as obvious
• Not as portable -- doesn't use relative directory names
• No skins.
• Froze while I was using it, stuck in "idle" mode.
  

 
Winner: RadioSure - navigating radio stations is much easier, most stations are in MP3 anyway so its better to have the automatic bitrate, and has yet to crash even after running all night.  Still want to hang on to Screamer in case you come across an Ogg channel you like.  Not recompressing your audio where possible is important.
 

Suggestion for use: to grow your music collection overnight, just copy and paste another version of RadioSure and have them run concurrently on a station you enjoy. Run both programs with the volume down and then fill your player in the morning.

Download:

RadioSure

• Portablefreeware's listing and how to get portable version
• Official home page

Version: 2.0.872.0
Size: 4.41 megs (save some by deleting non-English files under \Lang)
RAM Usage: 30 megs
License: Freeware (donate)
Score: 7 out of 10 - Minor updates such as the PLS issue (not a difficult addition) and recording to Ogg would work wonders.  No complaints about the search window, but would like categories like Screamer's too.

Screamer

• Portablefreeware's listing and how to get portable version
• Official home page

Version: 0.4.3
Size: 2.63 megs (save about 200 k by deleting non-English files under \languages)
RAM Usage: 13 megs
License: Freeware (donate)
Score: 6 out of 10 - Menu system use should be great but because of so many dead channels, is extremely annoying.

Arsclip Portable Review

Repetitive actions meet CTRL+SHIFT+Z

If you're in the position of filling out forms or typing in information frequently and repetatively, this program will save you enormous amounts of time and frustration. Additionally for word processing, you don't have to keep track of every cut and paste: you can cut a few items and paste them at your leisure. After all, they're not going anywhere. This is a much more sensible way than to copy, go all the way to the bottom of the document, paste, go all the way back up, repeat. Word 2003 attempted to provide this feature but its far too cumbersome.

Get past the first step

What's terrible about ArsClip is the first few minutes working with it: you have to learn the key combination or be terrifically confused. Everything after that is a dream. Hold CTRL, SHIFT, and then Z, and things rapidly come together.

Quick intro

1. Click copy a few elements (don't paste them anywhere) that you type out frequently during your day. This could be as simple as your email signature or as complex as entire form emails (e.g.: "thank you for your interest...").
2. Press CTRL+SHIFT+Z. Right-click one of those items and choose "Make Permanent Item"
3. Whenever you need to paste that text, its available inside that menu. Fantastic.

Good

• Surprisingly feature-rich and well thought out. Clearly its been in development for quite some time:
• Numbers next to each menu item mean that you can use the keyboard exclusively to paste elements. Permanent items will always have the same key association.
  
• Keeps track of the application you copied it from so you don't get confused. All the data you copied from Microsoft Word will look different than those you copied from Firefox:

• You can even copy pictures, although you have to enable this feature inside the Config menu (Non-Text Items).
  
• Works as an informal Notepad, keeping an infinite history of copied items (right-click the icon in the tray and select "Removed Items").
• Wonderfully customizable. Hot keys, menu items, and beyond.
  

Bad

• Not as smooth and elegant as some other similar programs I've seen
  
• I was not able to make the "form fill" process work. This is a simple method by which the program is supposed to simulate a "TAB" key press right after something is pasted so the user can paste to the next feild (say your username, then your password).
• As mentioned at the beginning, a barrier to entry for non-techy users.
  

For Extra Privacy

• Delete all the "___cache" folders or right-click the taskbar and select "Flush" - "Flush Everything"

Download

• Official home page
  
• Portablefreeware's listing

Version: 3.1.3
Size: 1.7 megs (1.5 if you delete the included source code zip file)
RAM Usage: 7.7 megs
License: GPL
Score: 8 out of 10 - So small and yet packed with so many features its unbelievable. The more you dig, the more you find -- but an elegance and simplicity is lost.
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Yes.

Related: Freewaregenius did a great overview of the program (scroll down a bit).

QtWeb Portable Review

Your web browser (and no one else's)

This lightweight browser based on the same technologies as Google Chrome and Safari isn't innovative, but its the one browser that puts the controls back in the hands of the user. Those who have used a variety of web browsers will recognize all its features, but they're at least present instead of trying to hide everything behind ease-of-use tricks. What it lacks in advanced web technologies and compatibility, QtWeb makes up for in privacy, simplicity, control, and speed. This is the browser I would have developed.



Privacy, Privacy, Privacy

Front and center is your confidentiality, in direct contrast to many issues with Google's Chrome browser. First, there's a privacy button of a cloaked figure right on the tool bar (frequently called in other browsers the "porn mode") that will not log your activities in the cache or in the browser history while on. Second, a "user agent" changer that allows you to pretend (from the server's viewpoint at least) to be any browser you want. This probably is more for logging into websites that only allow certain browsers than the secrecy-minded, but its a nice touch. Finally, there's a great reset tool where you can start over from scratch. You'll find it under the Privacy Menu: "Reset QtWeb." This can also be made into a toolbar icon under "Settings" on the "Appearance" tab (the big red X).


Turning off the bells and whistles

The Privacy menu also allows users to turn off all sorts of great "features" they don't currently want. For example, when reading an article, you may not want pictures. Simply turn them off. Websites with extra features may not want javascript or cookies. And if you want to appear to be someone else, you can enable a proxy.



Built in basic Adblock tools

The new popup blocker. Enable them through the Settings Menu: Select the "Adblock" tab and click both "Block Most Ads" and "Block Most Counters." This is very refreshing to see made available.



Other features

• Changeable Interface - Very smooth animated tab and toolbar rearrangement (click and drag). Can move them anywhere on the screen you like, including the bottom and sides. This isn't perfect yet (moving the main bar to the sides is awkward), but its the best I've seen.
• Mouse Gestures built right in - love it!
• PDF - Save web pages as PDF files
• Bookmarks - Import bookmarks from every other major browser (and export to them)
• Full screen viewer - open up your whole screen save the address bar and buttons.
• Virtual keyboard - great for mouse-only terminals
• Search - All the major engines included in search bar (Google as default)
• Skins to mimic different operating systems and formats
• Great home web site has lots of information and is well designed. From experience, this is pretty remarkable.
  

Other features on the official site.

Interestingly, the "reload" or "refresh" key is not CTRL+R like most browsers, but instead F5, just like Windows. This was disorienting, but also made a lot of sense (although not very cross-platform), which brings me to ...

Issues

• Cross Platform? Doesn't appear to be a program that will be moving off Windows. I could be wrong about this.
• "Check for updates" did about the same thing as the "Help - About" did. This should actually check if there's an update, not tell you to go to the website.
  
• Security: Its unknown if security problems affecting Safari and Google Chrome will affect QtWeb.
• Shortcuts: Closing a tab is CTRL+F4, which I find awkward (other shortcuts)
• Incompatible: Rendering of some very common websites was a little off. This isn't necessarily QtWeb's fault -- I've had similar issues with Safari and Chrome.

Download:

• Official home page (recommended)
• Portablefreeware's listing

Version: 3.1 (build 011)
Size: 5.1 megs
RAM Usage: 56 megs
License: GPL - Given the way the program puts the user in control, its not surprising that its also the only modern browser besides K-Meleon to be licensed exclusively under the GPL. This is important because you can't, for example, distribute your own version of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome unless you rename it totally (like IceCat and Iron).
Score: 7 out of 10 - Missing so many features of other browsers, while at the same time ducking so many problems (ads, slowness, bad privacy)
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Still on the fence about this. Although it provides some great features, Iron is still my browser of choice behind FireFox.

YahElite Review

Neither "lite" nor "elite"

Billed as a lightweight Yahoo client, the software is surprisingly feature rich and fast while using (by default) the one-window format, it much more accurately draws design elements from mIRC to enhance Yahoo's experience. As an instant messaing client for Yahoo, its a formidable addition and worth checking out. However, as I was unable to test much of its functionality, many of the other features will go unreviewed.

At startup, YahElite provides a "Normal Chat" and "Pager" setting. Respectively, this is an IRC and Instant Messaging client format; a focus on chat "rooms" against a specific list of people you know. Based on problems with the "Normal Chat" in testing, I strongly recommend "Pager." This setting closer mimics the official client.

Even with this limitation, other chat clients out there have a lot to learn from YahElite.


User Interface

The look and feel is very much out of date in a sort of late 90's design style, which makes sense as development started in '98. Still, reinventing the wheel often means a learning curve, which YahElite doesn't have. For power users, the dearth of features won't hurt any feelings and may easily replace Yahoo's official client, which by contrast seems by comparison castrated in useful features bloated download size.

Above: Pager window that demonstrates something present throughout the program: primarily text buttons.

Privacy

One of the best parts about portable software is that its generally better for your privacy by its very nature as you take all your logs and settings with you. However, YahElite takes it a step further with the option to destroy all files and logs at program close. This feature forces the software to start as if it was just installed every time but protects user privacy from people looking at a computer after-the-fact.

Sadly, there is no feature for protecting conversations being eavesdropped over the network. This is a flaw with Yahoo's chat service protocol and not YahElite. Look to Jabber tools like Google Talk or others for encryption. For this, I recommend the portable and open source Pidgin.


Chat window awesomeness

Although the user inteface is a little noisy, there are some excellent controls that have been on my chat client wish-list for a long time. This is worth studying closely:

Left-to-right features

• Stay on top - just like it sounds -- don't let other windows focus cover up the YahElite window.
• Send colors - a great way to turn off frequently annoying color schemes.
• Send typing notifications - sometimes if you're chosing your words carefully, you can write and the rewrite something several times
• Voice features (untested)
• Play a sound (when message is received)
• Flash a window (when message is received)
• Number chat lines - a great feature that I've seen in no other client
• Decrease text size
• Default text size - sort of a reset button. Very welcome.
  
• Increase text size - for bigger screens
  
• Spellcheck - pretty much required if you ask me
  
• Smileys

Other features

• Excellent NOSPAM personal message filter feature, multiple spam filter settings. The official client could learn from this.
  
• Unique "Mamma Says" feature that helps track online chat usage:

• Astonishingly smart wallpaper system (maybe the best I've ever seen):

• E-mail checker
• Webcam system - untested in this review
  
• Voice chat - untested in this review
  
• Fullscreen capability - click the top bar to go back to normal settings
• And MANY more
  

Problems

Sadly, the program's failures are Yahoo's failures: it inability to use anything but the Yahoo chat protocol and several broken features killed its use. I wasn't able to log into chat rooms to find out whether YahElite fixed the problems with Yahoo's official chat rooms, which are spam-filled and won't allow you to effectively block users. The capsha (human test) program was offline during my test, so I quickly lost interest where YahElite might have restored my use of Yahoo as a chat service.

The program bills itself as a "no banners, no advertisements, no nags, no spyware" which certaily seems to be the case, but its unlikely you'll benefit from the spam blacking if you can't connect to chat rooms.


Final thoughts

Although this software definitely has its flaws, programs like this have me convinced that there is just a whole other world out there of people that works on obscure software. Where did something with this much packed into it come from and why have I never heard of it? Chat software developers everywhere should take note of YahElite.

Although it won't bother the average user, the homepage could use a little more information and not rely so much on the forums, which are usually a little too messy to provide more information. Release notes, a clear license, a roadmap for future additions, or even release date put on the download would really help out.


Download

• Instructions on how to make portable (recommended) or the official instructions from the website.
• Homepage
  

Version: 330.1
Size: 0.7 megs compressed, 0.8 megs uncompressed
RAM Usage: 0.7 megs
License: Freeware
CrossPlatform: Yes - claims to function under Linux with WINE
Score: 7 out of 10 - Exclusively for Yahoo IM (not chat room) users. For this narrow group, very feature-rich and a very worthy Yahoo IM replacement.
In Kitchen Sink Collection: No - Pidgin is a much better option for a wider portable freeware audience.

Update: Seems this was a timely post as the Yahoo Messenger 10 Beta just came out. It might also explain why several of the service didn't work, since Yahoo's updates are likely to have broken imitators both for obviously technical reasons, and just maybe in an effort to get people to try out the new stuff.

This is further suggested by fellow Yahoo chat network tool Pidgin's most recent 2.6.0 update, which has a lot of changes to the Yahoo protocol.

Hash Review

First, clearing up one confusion: Hash is both the name of the software and what it does: creates hashes.

Hash (the file output) - what are hashes?

Hashes (a.k.a. "digests") behave like a file fingerprint that help identify a file as authentic. This has many uses, such as when trying to determine that a file downloaded online is the one you're looking for and hasn't been corrupted. They are versatile, appearing as groups of numbers and letters that can be posted anywhere ("E55DA1922211").

Different file hashes have different advantages on a scale: security versus speed:

1. CRC32 - fastest
2. MD5 - seems to be the most popular
3. SHA1 - most accurate and longest
   

SHA1 might be thought to be taking ALL a person's fingerprints to verify with absolute certainty that the file is what its supposed to be. This is important if getting the right file is mission-critical. CRC32 meanwhile are usually used by internal programs such as DoubleKiller (also in the Kitchen Sink), to help discover files that are not just similar in name or size, but are identical. Torrents, meanwhile, automatically use the SHA1 protocol to verify downloaded data.

More on hashes from Wikipedia.

Hash (the software) - features

Provides a long list of file data about a given file or files by default -- all three hash types, as well as file version, size, and date. Can un-check boxes to gather less data.

Pros:

• Drag-and-drop friendly.
  
• Does multiple, even 100s of files automatically (if you do "Browse" hold CTRL or SHIFT to select multiple files)
  
• Progress bar to let you know how far along the process is and a "stop" button to cease progress.
• Absolutely tiny! Low footprint, low ram usage.
  

Cons

• No automatic file verification. To do this, I recommend creating a "torrent" using uTorrent or a similar program. Just ignore "tracker" information, since it won't be for sharing.
  

Download:

• Download
• PortableFreeware.com entry
  

Version: 1.04
Size: 28k megs
RAM Usage: 1.6 megs
License: Freeware (takes donations)
Score: 8 out of 10 - The best portable hash program I've yet found, but has no automatic checker. Who wants to read those long strings of text?
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Yes

Thunderbird Beta 3 Review

Thunderbird is already an excellent e-mail client that has steady yet slow improvement over the years. Its plugin structure has really made for a far better email client than many alternatives and its open nature makes it easy to plug into other email systems and of course for backing up. Integrated compression allows it to save lots of space, as text frequently compresses by 50% or more.

Great updates:

• Threads - A fix on the problem with Thunderbird 2.0 staying in the "thread" format (like Gmail's system) when you restart. Do this by selecting "View - Sort by - Threaded".
  

• Integration with Gmail. Allows you to get both POP and IMAP settings, which download all your email and download just the headings respectively. This was very welcome and seems to work beautifully.
  
• Activity Manager gives you a rundown of the actions Thunderbird has taken. A problem in the previous Thunderbird left me wondering if it was actually checking my e-mail every 5 minutes -- now I know.
• Message Summary View - extremely cool. From the release notes: "Selecting multiple messages will give you a summary view of the emails you have selected." Just try it -- its terrific.

• Similarity with Firefox
  

• Tabbed View - really slick -- I'm surprised this wasn't already present. Overall the interface is much smoother and cleaner.

• Back and Forward buttons -- awesome.
  

More updates are on their way and I look forward to the finished product. Notably, a global search and index tool will be included in the final version. (I'm assuming global means all Inboxes, not the rest of the computer.)


Wishlist:

• User Interface: the formatting of email for 2nd and 3rd layer quoted text is a big "loud" and cluttered. Should be grey rather than blue.
  

• Same for the progress bar: a light grey is more than enough.

• To get messages in Plain text only, you have to go to "Options - Format - Plain Text only" Doesn't appear to be an option to set this by default in the Preferences like there was in Thunderbird 2.0.
  
• Selecting "File" and "New" should allow you to add an RSS/Atom feed.
• "Import" should allow you to import from file, as well as directly from Outlook and other email clients. That way you can grab stuff from backups rather than having to reinstall apps.
  

Plugin options that should be standard:

• Calendar and TodoList integration, like Lightning. Should be something you check to enable at startup or in the options menu. Who wouldn't want that?
• Better security options such as easy PGP/GPG tools and integration or just an "add a password" option of some kind. I know there's Enigmail and its very robust, but I think its important to have something beyond the very inaccessible "certificate" security.
  
• Want a "delete duplicates" option somewhere in there to clean up inbox.
  

• Download

System Requirements: Win 98 or above and very basic hardware
Version: 3.0 Beta
Size: 30 megs
RAM Usage: 6 megs
License: GPL, MPL
Score: 8 of 10. Very voluntary about not being ready for prime time, but a real step up in mail readers. In some ways very superior to Outlook. Looking forward to using it daily when it gets out of beta.
In Kitchen Sink Collection? No, simply because their trademark won't let me redistribute it.