Download Squad

There are tons of threatening viruses, spyware, and other yucky things out there in the world wide web. They have the powers to potentially access your computer if it is not locked down with security software, ensuring there are no kinds of intrusions and any malicious hacking going on. Is your computer protected against the many potentially dangerous things floating around the internet? Do you know for sure? How can you know for sure? And how do you get started and stay on top of your computers security? AOL has made it easier. A whole lot easier at ensuring you know how your computer is doing, staying up to date with its security, and protecting against all things threatening. I recently installed AOL's Active Security Monitor to check out my systems vitals, and how I was doing at staying secure on the machines I connect to the internet with. I knew I was lacking in some areas, but not that much!

Disclosure: Download Squad is owned by AOL. Nonetheless, the following is a completely unbiased review of AOL's Active Security Monitor software by myself. I absolutely loved it, and think it does a very effective job at ensuring users know how secure their computer really is and aiding in increasing security when needed.

Security Importance

As soon as you connect to the internet, your computer is open to potential hacking, and security intrusions. All kinds of viruses, worms and spyware's are out there waiting for a hole in your system to penetrate and muck things up really good. Not only do these yucky internet things muck your computer up, but they can potentially trash your system, and steal personal data, using it to their advantage. Things like email addresses, and credit card information can be made available to the world if your system is not locked down and protected properly.

There are a number of great applications that ensure your security when you are connected to the internet. These applications do everything from creating firewalls to ensure there are no intrusions into your computer, anti-virus applications to stop potentially hazardous downloaded files from damaging your entire system, and anti-spyware applications that stop individuals and companies from tracking your every move on the internet.

This is where AOL's Active Security Software comes into play. For people that are not into computers, or maybe some that are, we might not really pay attention to online security issues that might be threatening us. Dangerous indeed. Maybe its because we just don't know what software to use, or have no idea that we even need special software to protect us, or maybe we just let the security applications licenses expire, and not update them. AOL keeps us aware of what we need to stay safe.

The Software

AOL's Active Security Monitor makes it easy for a novice and expert computer user to see where their systems are lacking in the online security area. It is a simple, and free way to stay safe online, and save many hours and money trying to rebuild and fix a tainted computer system that has been penetrated from ugly online bugs, viruses, and hackers. It is so easy to set up and there are no special configurations required to get started.

Getting a hold of AOL's security application is easy. Visit www.activesecuritymonitor.com and download. Currently the software is only available for Windows 2000, Windows XP Home, and Windows XP Professional. Its only a 5MB download, so it downloads pretty quickly on a high speed connection. Installing the security application took no time at all for me. Less then 2 to3 minutes and it was all complete. I was able to start it right away without the hassle of the mind numbing restart or shutting down applications while the install was taking place.

Lets Check Out my Systems Security Status

On first start of the applicaiton, AOL's Active Security Monitor takes a few seconds to scan your system and check what type of security applications you have running, and what ones you don't. The first thing that catches your eye is the giant score number. In my case it was 53. This is the Safety Score. The Safety Score is the applications way of letting you know how safe your system is from threats. It ranks your computer from 0-100, the higher the number, the more protected your computer is from intrusions and viruses. Active Security Monitor basically scans your computer and ranks based on seven security criteria's:

• Firewalls – ensuring that you have a firewall installed and running.
• Virus Protection – ensures that you have virus protection software installed, running and up to date with all new updates.
• Spyware Protections – makes sure that there is a spyware application running and up to date.
• Windows and Browser – scans to make sure the latest browser and OS versions and updates are installed.
• Wireless Security – checks your wireless setting to ensure against unauthorized attacks.
• Peer to Peer – checks to see if you have any peer to peer applications installed.
• PC Utilities – takes a peek to see if there are any performance, and data recovery utilities installed.

Understanding the Safety Scores

As you can see by my results on this particular machine, I had a score of 53, and rated as fair. My Firewall was excellent, Yah! However, my Virus Protection, and Spyware Protection received a horrible POOR ranking. Booooo.

If you click on a Summary of the overall system score, Active Security Monitor will let you know if there are any critical problems, and recommends solutions in order to boost your Safety Score. In this case, we know I need to install some Anti-virus, and Anti-spyware applications to get my score into the higher ranks. If we click on the Details tab for Virus Protection, since that is where I am lacking, ASM lets me know that there is no anti-virus program detected. ASM also gives me recommendations for both free and paid applications that can do the job.

Now, even though my Windows & Browser category ranked Good, I am still able to click on Details, and get a list of problems and recommendations on how to fix the concerns, and raise my Safety Score for a totally secured and protected PC.

Another great feature of ASM is the score history section. Points are marked on a graph when the ASM application scans your computer. Points can then be selected to get a detailed overview of the changes that you have made to your system in order to improve your security.

If you are running a few computers on a home network, Active Security Monitor can also monitor all of the computers together. This is done by installing and registering each version of the application. This saves a ton of time by monitoring all computers together.

The Results

All in all, ASM is a great choice for both the novice and expert computer users. I loved it, and will use it to bring my security score up, and monitor how I am doing at protection my personal data. AOL's Active Security Monitor is a simple free application that ensures you know how secure your computer is. This is done by an easy to understand Security Score. With the detailed security recommendations that ASM produces for each security criteria area, AOL makes it virtually effortless to ensure that you know what areas you are lacking in, and how to fix them. Nobody wants to be hacked, download viruses, or get infected with lethal internet worms, and AOL's Active Security Monitor is going to be a great tool to add to your security utilities folder.

Additional AOL Active Security Monitor Reviews:

• Netscape
• Download.com
• iTechtips
• ZDNet