Maxthon Internet Browser software is a powerful tabbed browser with a highly customizable interface. It is based on the Internet Explorer browser engine (your most likely current web browser) which means that what works in the IE browser will work the same in Maxthon tabbed browser but with many additional efficient features:

See original here:
Maxthon 3.3.8.2000

The consumer cloud expanded again this week with the addition of Google Drive to more familiar brands like Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive, Apple iCloud, and Amazon Cloud Drive. Unfortunately, most of these cloud-based file storage services come with privacy and security caveats, often involving language such as “You give us the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files…” and “We do not guarantee that Your Files will not be subject to misappropriation, loss or damage and we will not be liable if they are…”

Why cloud?

Before I explain why it is now more important than ever to read the “Terms of Service” and “Privacy Policy” that apply to any online services you may want to use, let me say a few words about what the consumer cloud means in practical terms. It means Internet access to gigabytes of online storage space–at low or no cost–from a wide range of devices, desktop to smartphone.

Full access is provided to the account holder and partial access may be made available to third parties designated by the account holder, like friends and family, on some consumer cloud services (we will deal with service operator access in a moment).

The way that people use and access consumer cloud services varies considerably but here's just one example: I have about 30 gigabytes of music on my Amazon Cloud Drive. This happened when I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas and, in my enthusiasm to explore it without first reading the manual, accidentally initiated a 5-day sync-a-thon between one of my home computers and the Amazon cloud.

I decided to let the massive file transfer run its course and as a result I am now enjoying almost instant access to a familiar collection of thousands of songs in my own cloud, from just about any Internet-enabled device. When I buy new songs from Amazon they auto-magically get added to my Cloud Drive which enables me to pull down a local copy to any device.

Are they private?

I am happy to tell people about my use of the cloud for music storage because all of my MP3s are legal copies, ripped from my own CDs or purchased from either iTunes or Amazon. But what if someone questions that assertion? Could Amazon or some other entity scan my cloud drive for illegal content? Yes. Consider this section of the Amazon Cloud Drive Terms of Use:

5.2 Our Right to Access Your Files. You give us the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files: to provide you with technical support and address technical issues; to investigate compliance with the terms of this Agreement, enforce the terms of this Agreement and protect the Service and its users from fraud or security threats; or as we determine is necessary to provide the Service or comply with applicable law.

In other words, there is a fairly broad range of circumstances under which Amazon might look at your stuff, whether it is MP3s, JPEGs, PDFs, spreadsheets, doc files, or anything else you might decide to put in your cloud (you will find roughly similar language in the terms of use for Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive, and Apple iCloud). How you feel about these terms may depend on what your files contain. For example, it would be convenient for me to store all of my digital photos in the cloud, but my feelings about that are quite different from my feelings about storing music files in the cloud.

I do not mean to single out Amazon. As Sean Ludwig at VentureBeat recently pointed out, there are many similar policies at Apple, Google, Dropbox, and Microsoft. He points to a longer article containing a useful comparison of the various consumer cloud providers–with the unexplained exception of Amazon–over at The Verge. As both articles point out, Google may have a bigger perception problem in the privacy arena than other consumer cloud providers because Google Drive is covered by the company's omnibus privacy policy that highlights just how many different pieces of information Google stores about the people who use its services.

Are they serious?

An area of added concern that extends to several of the companies mentioned is the reservation of rights to use your cloud content to advance the interests of the cloud service provider. Here is Google:

When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.

Quite frankly, Google's lawyers could have made that whole paragraph a lot less scary if they had put the meat of the last sentence first, thereby making it clear that there are limited circumstances under which Google can use the very broad rights you are granting to them by uploading your stuff. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the words still mean the following scenario is entirely possible and legal: that special song you wrote and recorded and uploaded to Google Drive shows up on TV as part of a Google ad campaign, illustrated by those photos you took of your girlfriend (and this could happen without warning and without payment). Of course, you might be happy for the exposure, but that probably depends on the content of the song, the nature of photos, and even the current state of your relationships.

Are they secure?

Clearly, there are many good reasons to read the terms of use and privacy policies of any cloud service you are considering using before you start to upload files. If you need further persuasion, consider what one provider says about the security of your cloud data:

New computer virus is written in Windows command language! Will it be the real nightmare for users of the Internet? The last week of October 1998 brought a real surprise in the computer world. Kaspersky Labs Int. experts detected a computer virus using new methods of contamination and infecting…

Follow this link:
WinScript.Rabbit – 10 Strings Going To Shake The World!

The worm reported “in-the-wild” Cambridge, UK, December 1, 1999 – Kaspersky Labs Int., an international anti-virus software vendor, announces the discovery of the BubbleBoy Internet worm “in-the-wild”. The worm previously existed in “zoo” virus collections of hackers groups has been detected…

Read the original post:
BubbleBoy Has Broken Free

Kaspersky Labs Int. warns computer users about the discovery of new Internet worm I-Worm.NewApt. The worm has been reported in-the-wild in many countries of Europe, America and Asia. We recommend all AVP users to download and install a weekly update of AVP antivirus database. This is the worm virus…

Read more:
I-Worm.NewApt: a worm with many names

Cambridge, UK, March 6, 2000 – Kaspersky Labs Int., an international anti-virus software vendor, announces launch of its on-line Internet sales at www.kasperskylabs.com. At this site users can buy on-line all the most popular versions of Kaspersky Lab’s AntiViral Toolkit Pro (AVP) including those…

Read the rest here:
Kaspersky Lab Int. launches its on-line Internet sales

Kaspersky Lab today announced that its founder and CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, will give a speech at Infosecurity Europe 2012 entitled “The Internet as a Military-Free Zone – a Dream or an Opportunity?”

Read the original here:
Eugene Kaspersky Pushes for a Military-Free Internet at Infosecurity Europe 2012

Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 has come out on top among three commercial solutions in dedicated testing by the independent test lab AV-Test.org

Read more from the original source:
Kaspersky Lab Performs Best in Dedicated Testing Against Online Banking Threats

As written in our “Password management for non-obvious accounts” blog post on 22 February 2012, the FBI confiscated the DNS Servers used by the DNS Changer malware and replaced them with different servers so that infected users would not be left without internet right away. Initially these replacement DNS Servers were to be taken offline on 7 March 2012. That meant any users who had not yet cleaned their systems and restored their DNS configuration would find themselves unable to use the internet.

All internet users were urged to check and clean their systems before 7 March. However, due to the large number of affected systems and the unprecendent amount of effort involved, a federal judge in New York has ordered that the replacement DNS Servers not be taken offline before 9 July 2012. This may seem like good news but in reality it means too many systems are still affected and dismantling the replacement DNS Severs would cause havoc.

One way to check if your system is affected by this DNS Changer malware is to use a free DNS check that several websites offer. If you rely (or have relied) on these websites, please be aware that some websites may be tampered with or malicious and give you the wrong advice. Just to be sure you use correct websites that offer this feature, ESET has verified that this the US-website and this European-website have the proper checks and give sound advice.

Another good way to check if your system if affected by any variant of the DNS Changer malware or any type of other malware is to use the free ESET Online Scanner. ESET’s Online Scanner employs ThreatSense scanning technology and is updated several times a day with detection and automatic remediation of newly discovered threats.

Please be aware that if your system is still affected by DNS Changer come 9 July you may not be able to use the internet any longer. When that happens, especially for less technical people, it may be problematic to clean your system manually. A quick online scan just takes a short time and can prevent you and your system suffering further complications that could be awkward to resolve.

Read more from the original source:
DNS Changer (re)lived, new deadline: 9 July 2012!

Cambridge, UK, April 24, 2000 – Kaspersky Labs Int., a fast-growing international anti-virus software development company, announces the discovery of a new computer virus Win32.Santana, which has been distributed via the Internet and e-mail under the name of NOCIH.EXE, pretending to be a universal…

View original post here:
A virus pretends to be a cure against "Chernobyl"