Whether you know it or not, you’re constantly under attack by nefarious netizens. Why? Because your computer contains a gold mine of goodies just waiting to be exploited by wrongdoers.

Everything from your banking information and credit card numbers to your processor cycles and Internet connection are valuable commodities sought after by online thieves. We’re talking about denial of service (DoS) attacks, threats to your finances, and all-out identity theft. And if that weren’t enough, the culprits are continually developing new and increasingly complex techniques to take over your system for their personal gain, spurring an arms race between the digital crooks and the PC security vendors cashing in on the mayhem. But just how much protection do you really need?

In response to these ever-increasing threats, a host of new security applications have started to emerge, and each one promises to offer a level of protection be-yond that of your traditional anti-malware arsenal. The developers of these programs claim it’s no longer enough to rely on databases of known threats to catch viruses and spyware, and that today’s strains of PC pestilence are able to outsmart traditional safety measures. But is this truly the case, or is this simply another attempt to sell more crapware?

To find out, we gathered a host of next-generation security apps, installed them on our systems, and then put their claims to the test. We’ll tell you whether these new apps deliver on their promises and whether you should be rushing to upgrade.

Trustware Buffer Zone Pro

A one-click salve for Internet-induced infections

We’ve had our share of “uh-oh” moments, when curiosity superseded our better judgment and we impulsively clicked a suspicious link or downloaded a suspect file. In most cases, those moments have been followed by a laborious malware disinfection, or if the damage was severe, a full-blown Windows reinstall. Trustware Security promises to make those situations a thing of the past. To prove it’s serious, the company will pay you $500 if BufferZone fails to keep your PC secure, with a few caveats (http://tinyurl.com/2nvc23). Normally, we’d worry that such lofty claims would result in a Chapter 11 filing, but despite our best efforts, we were unable to wreak irreversible havoc on our test systems and claim our bounty.

By configuring removable media and network paths to open in a virtualized shell, you’ll keep your PC protected from every angle.

BufferZone works its wizardry by isolating all web-based activities, including email and IM software, at the application level. Without BufferZone, application write requests can alter critical system files and make changes to the all-important registry, allowing malware to muck up a system. But with BufferZone installed, applications stay sheathed in a virtualized shell, and write requests are diverted to a virtual folder. Programs think they’re writing to the OS, but everything stays intact, even when executing a dirty file. And unlike traditional anti-spyware and anti-virus applications, BufferZone doesn’t rely on definition updates; it blockades your system equally well against both known and unknown threats. Rounding out BufferZone’s list of tricks is the ability to protect your system from harmful files residing on removable media, such as USB keys and optical discs.

What BufferZone won’t do is install on Windows Vista; compatibility is limited to XP with SP2. It’s true that Vista has yet to gain traction among consumers, but we’d expect an app that touts next-gen capabilities to support the latest OS. Trustware assures us this support is forthcoming.

Tired of relatives asking you for free tech support? Install BufferZone on their PCs and schedule it to periodically and automatically undo Internet-based changes. Finally, you can stop screening your phone calls!

After installing BufferZone, we trotted indiscriminately through the web’s darker recesses, visiting every unsavory website we could find. Along the way, we installed toolbars, agreed to suspicious ActiveX requests, and downloaded infected files that would normally spell disaster. But no matter how badly we tried to muddle our system, damage stayed contained within BufferZone’s virtual folder. Emptying the buffer was like waking up from a bad dream—all our nasty downloads disappeared, along with any changes they made to our browser. That means legitimate changes, such as toolbars and add-ons, disappeared too, as it’s an all or nothing proposition with BufferZone; once you click, there’s no going back—and no last minute warnings, either. To save downloads you trust, you can right-click and move them out of the buffer prior to emptying it.

We didn’t notice a performance hit when using BufferZone, save for a short delay the first time we opened a program and BufferZone ran an optimization routine on it. And if true to its word, Trustware will have full Vista support by the time you read this.

Approved, $30/year
www.trustware.com/index.html

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