The smartphone nowadays is more than just a simple calling device. The Android phone or iPhone that you own is a powerful mini-computer that allows you to surf the web, check emails, chat with friends, read books, listen to music, watch videos or even work while on the move. Thus, it can be a frustrating experience when it lags terribly, or the battery runs out of juice very quickly. With a little (and regular) maintenance and the help of several applications, you can easily get your phone to perform at its best, consistency.

Security

Protecting your Android phone is the most important thing that you need to do. Having a virus or malware attack on you is no joke. It might cause your phone to lag, applications to crash and the performance to deteriorate. On a heavier scale, it can also send unauthorized (and expensive) SMS or make oversea call without your knowledge. Worst still, it accesses your file folders or emails and steals your confidential data.

1. Install anti-virus software

Unlike the anti-virus suite you install on your PC, the anti-virus applications for Android often come with much more features than just simple virus scanning. Avast Mobile Security is one anti-virus app that I use and love. It comes with a virus and malware scanner for the apps you installed and the files you downloaded, a privacy advisor that shows the privacy issue for each app, a firewall that you can use to configure which apps can access the Internet and lastly, a comprehensive anti-theft feature.

2. Backup your system

If you have associated your Android phone with your Google account, there is an option in the phone that allows you to sync your data (all apps installed from the Play Store, WiFi, passwords and other settings) to the Google server. For apps that you installed directly using the .apk file (Google doesn’t sync apps that are not installed from Play Store), you can make use of Astro file manager to backup the app. If you have a rooted device, the Titanium backup is a better choice since it backups your app settings as well. Lastly, you might want to sync your files with Dropbox or Box. One tool that I use to sync between phone and Dropbox is Dropspace.

Performance

One of the main factor that affects your phone performance is the battery life. Before we go on to fix the battery life, it is best to go to “Menu -> Settings -> Battery” to check out which function is sucking away all your battery juice. In most, if not all, Android phone, the screen will be the killer followed by the Android OS.

To combat this:

3. Switch to Auto-brightness for your screen setting

At the Brightness section in the Settings, set the phone brightness to “auto-brightness” mode. In this mode, the phone will detect the surrounding light and adjust the screen brightness accordingly. Alternatively, you can turn the screen brightness to the lowest when you are indoor and switch to auto-brightness when you are outdoor. An easier way is to place a Brightness toggle widget on your home screen so you can switch between each brightness level quickly and easily.

4. Disable battery-sucking settings in standby mode

If you care about your battery life, Juice Defender is the app that you must install. It helps to preserve your battery life by automatically turn off the battery sucking settings (such as 3G mode, screen brightness etc) when your phone is in standby mode. I have been able to stretch my battery life to 25 hours (from 18 hours) right by installing this app.

5. Monitor apps and kill them when they misbehave

Watchdog Task Manager is one app that you can install and leave it to do its work. WatchDog works quietly in the background to monitor your Android system for misbehaved apps and kill them when they are taking up chunks of your CPU power. It will ensure that your Android phone is always at its tip-top conditions and is not affected by any poorly-coded app.

6. Clean up your system cache, history and temporary files

Just like the browser in your PC, the more cache, history and temporary files it have, the slower it runs. This is especially if you have limited (internal) storage space on your phone. One tool that I use is the ZDBox. It comes with a system cleaner function that allows you to clean your system with one click. Other than that, ZDBox also has app locking, task killing, battery saving and do not disturb feature. All these made it a versatile, useful and handy tool for your Android phone.

Efficiency

Your smartphone should be able to improve your efficiency and help you to do more things with lesser efforts.

7. Automate the mundane tasks

Llama is one powerful (and free) and easy to use app that you can use to automate plenty of stuff on your phone. You can get it to automatically switch phone profile (Silent, Loud, Vibrate etc) according to preset events. You can also set rules and conditions and get it to perform tasks when the rules/conditions are met. One rule that I set is for it to switch to flight mode during sleeping hours. This will ensure that I have a peaceful sleep and save my battery life as well.

8. Change the workflow

The best way to improve your productivity is to change the workflow of your phone. If your Home launcher is very limiting and doesn’t allow you to do custom configuration, it is best to switch to one that gives you flexibility. There are plenty of launcher apps out there, with ADW Launcher, Go Launcher and LauncherPro among the more popular one. Most of them come with plenty of configuration options for you to customize your homescreen to the way you like it.

What other tips do you have to get the best out of your Android phone?

Image credit: By MJ/TR (´???)

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1. Stick With Microsoft Security Essentials

Gone are the days you have to shell out money for computer security just to get rid of a couple of viruses every year. For its customers, Microsoft already offers an application called “Microsoft Security Essentials“. It doesn’t come as part of your Windows installation, but it’s been around, and it’s been free for a very long time. You can download it if you run Windows Vista (32 or 64 bit) or later.

Microsoft’s Security Essentials software keeps you updated with its own virus definitions and helps you combat even the most complex infections. An additional bonus to install MSE is that it doesn’t take a whole lot of resources from your computer, like other “bloatware” anti-virus solutions do.

Go ahead and download MSE from here.

2. Windows Firewall Is as Competent as Any Other Firewall

It’s become a new fad lately to criticize every product Microsoft comes up with. While some of the complaints are well-merited, people often avoid using Windows Firewall because they hear it won’t really protect them. In reality, you can configure the firewall to do practically anything any other firewall can do. Contrary to many beliefs, Windows Firewall has the possibility to block outbound connections coming from a malicious application and monitor your network for anything else:

It’s all about searching. You can get to this window by clicking “Advanced settings” when you reach Windows Firewall settings in the control panel. There’s no reason anyone shouldn’t be able to have a secure system running solely with Windows Firewall. Honestly, though, configuring outbound blocks doesn’t really help you stop anything. If malware is making outbound connections through your computer, you should really consider getting rid of the malware. Blocking the malware’s access to the Internet doesn’t really stop it from hogging your computer’s resources.

On the other hand, you should really keep an eye on inbound connections, which often try to hook onto your Internet line and exploit your computer’s vulnerabilities. We can speculate as much as we want, but having Windows Firewall running on your computer is no different than using iptables on Linux. Both are very secure and difficult to exploit.

3. Download Windows Updates

Don’t listen to the conspiracy theorists saying that Microsoft Windows Update is an evil service that attempts to control your computer. While they might be right about the “control” part, it’s not like you’re going to suddenly see that you can’t go to a website because Microsoft is trying to “protect” you. The only thing that can happen is that they’ll pull an application from your system if it violates their policies, and that’s not going to happen until Windows 8 comes out. Still, they don’t need Windows Update to do that.

Downloading your updates is as important as running a firewall and keeping an up-to-date virus database. In fact, some malware has been rendered useless (like the “Conficker” virus) within a short while, when Microsoft patched up a vulnerability in Windows that it released as an update. People who refuse to use Windows Update might scoff at this, but it’s no laughing matter when you consider that many people also said that smoking isn’t bad for you.

It’s true that sometimes Windows Update might accidentally detect your Windows installation as counterfeit, but you can always ring up Microsoft on this. They’re always glad to assist you should anything go wrong on their end.

Are you annoyed by Windows Update forcing your computer to restart all the time? This isn’t an issue, as you can always configure it not to auto-restart after the update.

4. Disable UAC & Stop Downloading Suspicious Files

There’s a certain something that Microsoft should have never included in Windows: User Account Control. This intervention isn’t necessary in most systems, and certainly shouldn’t appear in home PCs. UAC basically is the pop-up that comes up whenever your computer wants to make sure you’re running an application on your own accord.  It looks something like this:

To disable it, read this article, which teaches you how to disable it under the “Disabling UAC” section.

Aside from disabling UAC, you can keep your computer secure using prevention. Download only from familiar sources and don’t download suspicious files. It only requires common sense. If someone links to a “.exe” file and says it’s a picture, don’t approach it. Someone links you to a page where you must log in to a website you’re already logged into? Don’t go to that page! These are simple and common tactics of fooling people, but as you grow more aware of what’s going on, you might prevent a major system catastrophe.

If you have a file you want to download and don’t know whether to trust it or not, upload it to VirusTotal and let its results tell you about it. The website runs the file you just downloaded through a ton of different anti-virus solutions and lets you know what each of them picks up. A few false positives might appear, but if many of the anti-virus solutions say that it’s an infected file, you’d best steer clear from it.

Following all this advice will help you thwart most common attacks, and even some rare ones, without ever having to pay for third-party software. If you have more ideas, throw them at us in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you!

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1. Don’t Listen to Websites Promising to Speed Up Your Computer

In most cases, you’d probably land on a pop-up advertisement promising that your computer will run much faster after you try out their software. I assure you that this is a gimmick intended to make you pay money for software that only takes up space on your hard drive. If you really want to make your computer faster, you’re going to have to pay some real bucks to get its hardware in shape.

Everything running on your computer depends on the hardware to run smoothly. Go to your local computer store and ask for a quote on a hardware tune-up. Most likely, if you bought your computer less than two years ago, the process will be painless and inexpensive. Make sure they don’t get cheap and install a bunch of low-grade parts on the PC just to give you a temporary boost in speed.

The software you really need to make your computer run faster comes with Windows already. Disk Defragmenter is one of them. All computers running a Windows version above 3.0 can defragment their drives, and you’ll find the defragmentation utility in the Accessories sub-menu of your “Start” menu. The utility finds files on your hard disk that have been scattered all over the place and puts them all in one place, making them easier to find.

Other third-party utilities might speed your computer up efficiently, also, but don’t listen to the pop-up ads that advertise a utility that can speed up your computer. Use things like Tune-Up Utilities or something you can purchase from your local computer store.

2. There Are Two Types of Memory on Your Computer

This might be rather rudimentary, but there are cases when people can’t distinguish between random access memory (RAM) and storage. Both types of memory store things, but RAM only does this temporarily.

RAM stores everything you’re running right now, at this very second. This page you’re reading, for example, occupies a certain space in your RAM and will disappear once you close the page. Active components of every program are committed to this memory. A computer’s RAM takes the form of small cards that sit in slots on the motherboard.

Storage is the kind of memory that stores everything your computer has, like installed programs and the operating system. This memory often resides in the hard drive or solid state drive. Both devices have the same purpose, but are designed differently. A hard drive has multiple platters that spin, and read/write heads that manipulate and retrieve data. It’s sort of like a vinyl record player that can also write to the record. Solid state drives are designed with flash memory, much like the memory on your digital camera or phone.

3. Windows UAC and Security Isn’t Enough

Sure, Microsoft can boast about how its product has immense security and how you are less likely to get infected by a virus, but that doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a virus finding its way to your computer. You should always install an anti-virus application on your computer to keep it safe from threats, particularly one that regularly updates its database. There are many mixed reviews about anti-virus software, so you’ll have to do a little bit of homework to find out which one is right for you. Our favorite is Microsoft Security Essential though.

Try to avoid buying an AV from a company that’s not reputable. Do a Google search for “anti-virus review.” You’ll see a whole bunch of reviews related to many different anti-virus programs. Even better, search for “top 10 antivirus software.” Just so you know, BitDefender hits the top for 2012 and it’s affordable, priced at $30. That’s much better than paying insane prices for a computer repair after an infection.

4. Windows Update is Your Friend

Some people might tell you to turn off Windows Update because of bad experiences they’ve had. DON’T DO THAT! Microsoft usually releases an update within a week of discovering a new vulnerability. By updating your computer regularly, it keeps your computer running with tighter security that others might not have. If you don’t feel comfortable turning on automatic updates, at least let Windows prompt you when new updates are available so you can pick and choose them individually. Some of the updates released by Microsoft plug up serious security holes in the operating system.

A Final Word

I remember when I was much younger and got my first computer with Windows 95. It was something exciting, an unadulterated realm where I could do practically anything I wanted. There was only one problem: My computer became infected with all sorts of viruses after only a month, and I remember all the trouble I went through to get it cleaned up. Everything started running slower after a while, and I had no clue why. With the tips I mentioned above, you’d fare much better than I did and probably wouldn’t go through as much trouble. Happy computing/Windows-ing/whatever you do!

Photo Credit: flickr

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Bitdefender Total Security 2012 is a complete security suite that comes with anti-virus, anti-spam, parental control, privacy control, firewall and many more security and Windows performance boosting features. The software, once installed, runs in auto-pilot mode so you don’t have to deal with tons of configuration options just to get it running.

To get it started, simply download and install Bitdefender (Bitdefender is NOT free. You can, however, download the free trial and see if you like it). Once installed, you will have to restart your PC.

After the restart, unlike other security suite, it doesn’t pop up to ask you to configure anything. It automatically assumes the default settings and run on auto-pilot mode. For once, I didn’t even know that it exists.

This is what you will see at its control panel:

By default, all the settings are turned to “ON”. You can easily turn them off by flipping the ON/OFF switch.

Anti-virus

The Anti-virus mode allows you to perform a quick scan, full scan, custom scan (of particular folders), vulnerability scan and reboot your PC in rescue mode. The vulnerability scan includes scanning of windows and applications updates and your password strength.

Anti-Spam

Anti-spam is probably useful only if you use email client like Outlook or Thunderbird.

Firewall

The Firewall scans your incoming and outgoing ports to make sure there is no unauthorized access to/from your PC.

Privacy Control

There are three modes in the Privacy Control section: Anti-phising, Data protection and encryption. The Anti-phising feature protects you while you are surfing the web. It detects phishing and fraud site and notifies you when you encounter one. It also integrates a toolbar to your browser and inform you if the page you are visiting safe or not. I do find this annoying though, and I switched it off immediately.

The Encryption feature allows you to add confidential files to the file vault and have them encrypted. You can also shred a file if you want to delete it beyond recovery.

Tune up

The tune up section cleans up your internet cache and detect duplicate files. You can also use it to monitor applications and see the amount of CPU and memory they are using.

Safebox

Safebox is the online backup solution of Bitdefender. They offer you 2GB of online space (bundled with the software cost) and allows you to backup important files to your account. You can get it to autosync so your important files will always be backed up. While this is a great effort by Bitdefender, a meager 2GB storage space is not going to amount to anything, especially if you are going to backup your music and videos. With online storage solutions abound, I am not sure this feature will attract any interest and usage.

Conclusion

Most security suite software use plenty of system resources and cause your system to go slow. For Bitdefender, it is not the case. At its auto-pilot mode, it only takes up less than 10MB of memory. As I mentioned earlier, I almost forgot its existence. Together with the comprehensive security features, it is definitely worth the consideration if you are looking for a security suite software.

Bitdefender costs $69.95 for 1 PC per year.

Bitdefender

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Anti-virus suite aside, the next better thing you can do to protect yourself is to setup a security sandbox for your users to access. Within this zone, any virus or security threat won’t be able to make changes to the system files and folders. BufferZone Pro is one such software that provides security sandbox, and it is free.

What BufferZone Pro does is to create a virtual zone where you can surf the web and IM chat with your friends. Within this zone, all potentially threatening programs and files remain isolated from your personal files and your PC’s operating system and your personal and private information (especially when you are doing Internet banking) stay in a separated trusted environment.

Download BufferZone Pro and install it in your Windows computer.

There’s almost zero configuration required. Once you are done with the installation, BufferZone Pro will scan our system for software that access the Internet. When you open your browser or any other app, you will see a big red border around it, which means the session is being sandboxed and protected.

When you open the BufferZone dashboard while you are surfing, you can see the number of activities it is monitoring and the number of privacy and system threats prevented.

If there is a program that is not protected by BufferZone, you can also manually add it into the virtual zone.

Other features include creating a snapshot of your current virtual zone and the ability to restore from it in the future. You can also hide confidential files so it won’t be detectable on the web.

Personally, I have tried BufferZone Pro and I am surprise that it doesn’t affect the speed of browsing, nor does it slow down the system. Other than the big red border (which is rather ugly) that signifies its existence, everything run as per normal, except with the added security.

Even if you already have the best anti-virus suite around, it doesn’t hurt to install an extra layer of security to protect yourself and your computer. Give BufferZone a try, especially if you are a system administrator or technician.

BufferZone Pro

Image credit: CarbonNYC

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To download the beta version of Microsoft Security Essentials, you need to first login to your Windows Live account and complete a survey. Once that is done, you will be able to download the respective software for your Windows version (Win XP or Vista/7).

At MakeTechEasier, we will take you through the software and show you what to expect from this yet another Microsoft product.

Simple Interface

One thing that anyone will notice immediately after the installation is that it is simple in design and user interface. You don’t find plenty of fanciful icons or even several levels deep of tab menu. All you find is only a simple window with some simple, but important options.

There are four main tabs on the window: Home, Update, History and Settings.

Home is where you view the current status while the Update tab show you the last virus definition update time. The History tab shows a list of all the virus detected on your computer and the actions taken to combat the virus. Lastly, the Settings tab contains the common configuration options found in almost every anti-virus software, including scheduling regular scan, actions to take when viruses are detected, scan files and attachments as they are downloaded etc.

Low on Memory Resources

I have tried several anti-virus software, both paid and free, on my Windows over the years and there is always one thing in common: The CPU and memory usage spike up whenever I run a full scan of the computer. When I test-drive with Microsoft Security Essentials on Windows 7, I was surprised that while scanning my hard disk, it didn’t cause my other applications to hang. I am pretty impressed by the low memory usage and how it can get things done without causing the whole system to hang.

Screenshots tour:

After Thoughts

With the bitDefender firewal, User Account Controll and now the anti-virus software, it seems that Microsoft is making a serious attempt to combat the all securities issues that are troubling them all this while. While this won’t stop hackers from developing new viruses, it does make the system slightly harder to crack.

What other anti-virus software do you think is worth the mention here? Shout it out in the comments.

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