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Purchasing the right utilities for your PC has never been an easy proposition. Faced with a marketplace filled with a bewildering choice of options, picking an anti—virus program, firewall and other assorted maintenance programs requires patience and a fairly sophisticated understanding of the viable options. While there are a few all in one utilities available, they are not all equal.
If you are looking for the ultimate all in one package, you may be disappointed. Symantec, makers of the industry standard Norton Anti-virus, have some excellent utilities. However, in order to purchase them, you must purchase sets and then independent programs. There is no one combo set from Symantec that will offer firewall protection, anti-virus protection, spam filters, pop-up blockers and everything else you can think of in a comprehensive package.
The same is also true for McAfee. Offering an excellent anti-virus that is easy on your system resources and a solid firewall, McAfee does not offer the comprehensive system tools that Symantec has in their various suites. McAfee has opted to focus on security, anti—virus, firewalls, spam filters and their superb disk cleaning utility. Even if you wanted to create a total McAfee utility package, it is not possible due to the simple fact that they do not create certain utilities.
Even though Windows comes with some basic applications for utility needs, the built in firewall is rudimentary at best. There is no anti-virus incorporated into Windows XP. Ad blockers have yet to be a part of the OS. The reality of contemporary computing is that you have to procure these things through third parties.
The most robust set I have seen to date has to be Iolo’s System Mechanic Professional 4. Minus the name recognition of the two big brand names in PC care, Iolo’s offering is not to be dismissed. Once you find out what is enclosed in the package, the offering looks more and more impressive.
Iolo has wisely chosen a solid Anti—Virus program with their utilities. Panda Anti—Virus Platinum, along with a firewall, integrates the two with one interface. With updates daily, Panda Antivirus Platinum 7 is fairly unobtrusive, and amazingly agile. Speedwise, it is something of a speed demon. With fast interaction with Outlook, in terms of the look and feel of the application and its interface, it shares an amazing likeness to McAfee. As an option you can configure sounds for various events with the program. What truly “got me” was the British accent that greets you when you fire up the program. It is an elegant touch to the application.
Even the pop up window alerting you to updates is reminiscent of McAfee’s. The similarities do not end there. Even the Firewall, which is relatively unobtrusive, has a McAfee type of appearance. The clean sparse main menu is a clear indication of the direction the product is taking with its look.
An interesting addition to the tools is the fact that this is one of the few suites I have seen that includes an anti spyware program and a pop up blocker. While the pop up blocker has some rough edges, it is not at the bottom of the rung either.
The spyware program, which hunts out programs that have smuggled themselves on to your hard drive, is a feature frequently not included in some packages.
The profusion of important utilities included here are indeed value conscious additions. As a whole I have seen few packages that offer this much all in one place. Unlike some utilities that eat up memory and hard drive space, the program is well designed and reasonably accessible even to a newcomer.
The only downside is that the program does not ship with a manual. The idea that online help is always the answer for the most part works, but it would be helpful to have at least some hard copy available. But this is a minor point.
With a program that gets so much right, it is hard to really find fault with System Mechanic. The integration with Windows XP is what you would expect and the utilities enclosed are what you need with few useless programs. There is no fluff here. Considering what is included, the quality of the program, this is the kind of program that will be great for newcomers and powerful enough for those that want to “tweak” Windows for the most performance possible. With care and the judicious use of some high end features, this could be the ultimate utility suite.
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