What’s New at PC Pitstop, January 2005
IN THIS ISSUE
- More Information on Safe Surfing
- PC Pitstop Test Enhancements
- Top Dawg Challenge Winners
- Is AMD Cleaning Intel’s clock?
- Join the PC Pitstop Folding or SETI Team
More Information on Safe Surfing
Our series on spyware and Internet scams can help you and your family stay safe while you cruise the Internet. This month’s article shows some of the scams and deceptions you may find, including drive-by ActiveX dialogs, peer-to-peer download dangers, and deceptive advertising. We also show you some of the email scams such as “phishing” that attempt to trick you into giving out your personal information. If you haven’t seen last month’s article on spyware and kids, be sure to check it out as well!
Read more (Safe Surfing)…
Read more (Spy Kids)…
Give Your PC A
Performance Boost
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Try Diskeeper.
PC Pitstop Test Enhancements
This month we’ve added a new feature to our Full Tests and you can now see the complete list of software that is installed on your system. This list comes from the Add/Remove Programs list in Control Panel, but we add one very useful feature that you can’t get in Windows: The list is sorted by the date that the programs were installed. This can be useful for all sorts of problem solving, especially for things that crop up suddenly due to some recently installed program.
Run the Full Test
Top Dawg Challenge Winners
Our first-ever Top Dawg Challenge was a big success, but more importantly it was great fun! Steve Hogan took first prize in the stock category with his stock 2.6GHz Athlon FX-55 system. Tim Starace won the overclocked AMD category with an Athlon FX-55 juiced all the way to 3.427GHz! Doug Bender claimed top prize in the overclocked Intel category with a Pentium 4 maxed at 4.417GHz. All of them get top-end video cards courtesy of the Challenge sponsor, BFG. Many thanks to BFG and all the Pit Crew that helped judge and check scores. Get the full rundown on all the winners and prizes at our Top Dawg Challenge page:
Two Great Spyware Cleaners
Many people are concerned about spyware, and shady companies are exploiting those worries by selling ineffective anti-spyware products. Some purported anti-spyware products actually install spyware onto your system! We can recommend Spyware Doctor and Pest Patrol for legitimate and effective anti-spyware tools.
Is AMD Cleaning Intel’s Clock?
Our Top Dawg Challenge shows that although Intel still has chips running at the highest clock speeds, AMD manages to get a lot more work done at lower clock speeds. If you’re going out to buy a new PC, don’t let Intel’s higher clock speeds trick you into thinking that Intel chips are faster. Want more help in finding the right chip for your next computer? Ask at The Pit:
Join the PC Pitstop Folding or SETI Team
Can a PC cure cancer? The Folding@Home project uses your spare CPU time to find proteins that might be useful in the fight against diseases. SETI@Home puts your computing power to work searching for messages in the signals we receive from space. Learn more and join the team at the Distributed Computing section of our forums!
About PC Pitstop
PC Pitstop, LLC (https://www.pcpitstop.com) was formed in February 2000, and offers users a unique way to make sure their PCs are running fast, stable and secure–all through a free, Web-based interface.
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