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It’s Like a Real-Time Bouncer for Your Computer
By John F | March 28, 2008
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I recently came across a great little program that sits in the background, using little resources, monitoring what programs are running on your computer. You are given a lot of information about what is running on your computer and enables you to manage your start-ups, cookies, services and tasks quickly and easily.
Scotty [the icon for Winpatrol] stands on guard will alert you when another program is trying to change something such as a program [good or bad] wanting to start up when your computer boots up, an icon change in your system tray or a change in computer your settings. You are then giving a visual warning, which you can either agree or disagree with.
There is a free version which is very handy and a Plus version with more options. I’m currently using the free version. I may upgrade to the Plus version depending on how useful I find it. So far it highlighted that I had the QAZ virus, which attempted to change notepad settings. This trojan virus is launched every time a user runs Notepad. It also attempts to spread itself to other shared drives on local networks. A quick anti-virus scan and it was gone.
The program is Winpatrol. Click the following link http://www.winpatrol.com to access the download page. The features are below:
- Detect and Review New Auto-Start-up Programs
- Automatically Disable Reoccuring Start-up Programs
- Monitor BHO’s and Tool Bars
- Monitor Creation of Scheduled Tasks
- Display and Kill Multiple Running Tasks
- Monitor, Stop and Control Window Services
- Manage and Automatically Remove Unwanted Cookies
- Monitor IE Home and Search pages
- Monitor and Edit HOST File
- Detect and Lock Changes to File Type Associations
- Detect and View Newly Created Hidden Files
- Track Date/Time when programs are first detected on your system
- Delay Auto-Start-up programs for quick boot up
- Multiple System Report Options
- Undocumented or HIDDEN Registry Start-up Keys
If you download and use Winpatrol, please let me know how you get on. Enjoy!
Topics: Computer Security Usefulness, Free Software Usefulness |